Highlights from the STAR experiment

We present an overview of the recent results obtained by the STAR Collaboration at RHIC. We report the beam energy dependence of directed flow of strange particles. These results support the assumption, that directed flow is formed before hadronization and observed particles are formed via coalescence of constituent quarks. First evidence of a non-zero directed flow of D-0 meson is reported. We present the precision measurement of elliptic flow of D-0 meson and the first measurement of Lambda(c) baryon in Au+Au collisions at root s(NN) = 200 GeV, which suggests thermalization of charm quarks. We report results of global Lambda polarization measurements in Au +Au collisions, together with the investigation of polarization dependence of centrality and transverse momentum p(T). Results from the STAR fixed-target program show good agreement with previously obtained results. A precise measurement of the H-3(Lambda) lifetime is presented. Mesonic decay modes are used to reconstruct the H-3(Lambda) from Au +Au collisions. The measured lifetime is about 50% shorter than the one of a free Lambda, indicating a strong hyperon-nucleon interaction in the hypernucleus system. Finally, we give an outlook to detector upgrades for the Beam Energy Scan phase II.