Looking for quark-gluon plasma with strange hadrons
- Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, CA (United States)
The ultimate goal of studying nucleus-nucleus collisions at very high energies is the quest for quark-gluon plasma (QGP). Quantum Chromodynamics predicts unambiguously that above a critical temperature of about 200 MeV, nuclear matter, or even the vacuum itself, if excited to a sufficiently high energy density (of about few GeV/fm{sup 3}) over an extended region will undergo a phase transition into a new state of matter in which quarks and gluons are no longer confined inside individual nucleons and mesons. Cosmologists believe that such a state of nuclear matter is not new at all, because the entire universe existed as a quark- gluon plasma during the first microseconds of the Big Bang. In the laboratory environment, similar conditions could be created in nucleus-nucleus reactions by converting the initial relative c.m. energy into internal excitation of a {open_quotes}fireball{close_quotes} formed at mid-rapidity. One of the earliest, and most discussed prediction for QGP signature, is strangeness. Because of the large mass of the strange quark, the abundance of strangeness in ordinary hadronic matter is suppressed, but it is expected to increase rapidly if QGP is formed. In this review the current status of the selected experimental results on strange particle production, which are relevant to equilibration and QGP formation in nucleus-nucleus collisions, are presented. Data on p+p/{anti p}+p and p+A/{anti p}+A is used only as reference when needed.
- OSTI ID:
- 387230
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-931044--
- Journal Information:
- Bulletin of the American Physical Society, Journal Name: Bulletin of the American Physical Society Journal Issue: 9 Vol. 38; ISSN BAPSA6; ISSN 0003-0503
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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