  Laboratory experiments with high-energetic heavy-ion collisions offer the
opportunity to explore fundamental properties of nuclear matter, such as the
high-density equation-of-state, which governs the structure and dynamics of
cosmic objects and phenomena like neutron stars, supernova explosions, and
neutron star mergers. A particular goal and challenge of the experiments is to
unravel the microscopic degrees-of-freedom of strongly interaction matter at
high density, including the search for phase transitions, which may feature a
region of phase coexistence and a critical endpoint. As the theory of strong
interaction is not able to make firm predictions for the structure and the
properties of matter high baryon chemical potentials, the scientific progress
in this field is driven by experimental results. The mission of future
experiments at FAIR and NICA, which will complement the running experimental
programs at GSI, CERN, and RHIC, is to explore new diagnostic probes, which
never have been measured before at collision energies, where the highest
net-baryon densities will be created. The most promising observables, which are
expected to shed light on the nature of high-density QCD matter, comprise the
collective flow of identified particles including multi-strange (anti-)
hyperons, fluctuations and correlations, lepton pairs, and charmed particles.
In the following, the perspectives for experiments in the NICA energy range
will be discussed.
