Rapidity dependence of strange particle ratios in nuclear collisions

Journal Article · Thu Jul 20 04:00:00 EDT 1995 · AIP Conference Proceedings

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.48712· OSTI ID:165706

Slotta, C ^[1]; Sollfrank, J ^[2]; Heinz, U ^[1]

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1. Institut fuer Theoretische Physik, Universitaet Regensburg, D-93040 Regensburg (Germany)
2. Research Institute for Theoretical Physics, P.O. Box 9 (Siltavuorenpenger 20 C), FIN-00014 University of Helsinki (Finland)

It was recently found [1,2] that in sulphur-induced nuclear collisions at 200 A GeV the observed strange hadron abundances can be explained within a thermodynamic model where baryons and mesons separately are in a state of relative chemical equilibrium, with overall strangeness being slightly undersaturated, but distributed among the strange hadron channels according to relative chemical equilibrium with a vanishing strange quark chemical potential. These studies were made either in a narrow central rapidity window [1] or (in the case of S-S collisions [2]) also using the rapidity-integrated total multiplicities. We develop a consistent thermodynamic formulation of the concept of relative chemical equilibrium and show how to introduce into the partition function deviations from absolute chemical equilibrium, e. g. an undersaturation of overall strangeness or the breaking of chemical equilibrium between mesons and baryons. We then proceed to test on the available data the hypothesis that the strange quark chemical potential vanishes everywhere, and that the rapidity distributions of all the observed hadrons can be explained in terms of one common, rapidity-dependent function {mu}{sub q}({eta}) for the baryon chemical potential only. The aim of this study is to shed light on the observed strong rapidity dependence of the strange baryon ratios in the NA36 experiment [3]. {copyright} 1995 {ital American} {ital Institute} {ital of} {ital Physics}.

• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• OSTI ID: 165706
• Report Number(s): CONF-950172--
• Journal Information: AIP Conference Proceedings, Journal Name: AIP Conference Proceedings Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 340; ISSN APCPCS; ISSN 0094-243X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

66 PHYSICS
BRANCHING RATIO
DEEP INELASTIC HEAVY ION REACTIONS
HADRONS
PARTICLE PRODUCTION
PARTICLE RAPIDITY
STRANGENESS
THERMODYNAMIC MODEL