Strangeness Enhancement in Heavy Ion Collisions - Evidence for Quark-Gluon-Matter ?

Physics – Nuclear Physics – Nuclear Theory

Scientific paper

Rate now

  [ 0.00 ] – not rated yet Voters 0   Comments 0

Details

published version, discussion on strange mesons and new table added, extended discussion on strange baryon yields. Latex, 20 p

Scientific paper

10.1016/S0370-2693(99)01318-0

The centrality dependence of (multi-)strange hadron abundances is studied for Pb(158 AGeV)Pb reactions and compared to p(158 GeV)Pb collisions. The microscopic transport model UrQMD is used for this analysis. The predicted Lambda/pi-, Xi-/pi- and Omega-/pi- ratios are enhanced due to rescattering in central Pb-Pb collisions as compared to peripheral Pb-Pb or p-Pb collisions. A reduction of the constituent quark masses to the current quark masses m_s \sim 230 MeV, m_q \sim 10 MeV, as motivated by chiral symmetry restoration, enhances the hyperon yields to the experimentally observed high values. Similar results are obtained by an ad hoc overall increase of the color electric field strength (effective string tension of kappa=3 GeV/fm). The enhancement depends strongly on the kinematical cuts. The maximum enhancement is predicted around midrapidity. For Lambda's, strangeness suppression is predicted at projectile/target rapidity. For Omega's, the predicted enhancement can be as large as one order of magnitude. Comparisons of Pb-Pb data to proton induced asymmetric (p-A) collisions are hampered due to the predicted strong asymmetry in the various rapidity distributions of the different (strange) particle species. In p-Pb collisions, strangeness is locally (in rapidity) not conserved. The present comparison to the data of the WA97 and NA49 collaborations clearly supports the suggestion that conventional (free) hadronic scenarios are unable to describe the observed high (anti-)hyperon yields in central collisions. The doubling of the strangeness to nonstrange suppression factor, gamma_s \approx 0.65, might be interpreted as a signal of a phase of nearly massless particles.

No associations

LandOfFree

Say what you really think

Search LandOfFree.com for scientists and scientific papers. Rate them and share your experience with other people.

Rating

Strangeness Enhancement in Heavy Ion Collisions - Evidence for Quark-Gluon-Matter ? does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Strangeness Enhancement in Heavy Ion Collisions - Evidence for Quark-Gluon-Matter ?, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Strangeness Enhancement in Heavy Ion Collisions - Evidence for Quark-Gluon-Matter ? will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

     

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-357896

  Search
All data on this website is collected from public sources. Our data reflects the most accurate information available at the time of publication.