Strangeness chemical equilibration in a quark-gluon plasma

Jean Letessier, Johann Rafelski

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

22 Scopus citations

Abstract

We study, in the dynamically evolving quark-gluon plasma (QGP) fireball formed in relativistic heavy ion collisions at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the growth of strangeness yield toward and beyond the chemical equilibrium. We account for the contribution of the direct strangeness production and evaluate the thermal-QCD strangeness production mechanisms. The specific yield of strangeness per entropy, s/S, is the primary target variable. We explore the effect of collision impact parameter, i.e., fireball size, on kinetic strangeness chemical equilibration in QGP. Insights gained in studying the RHIC data with regard to the dynamics of the fireball are applied to the study of strangeness production at the LHC. We use these results and consider the strange hadron relative particle yields at RHIC and LHC in a systematic fashion. We consider both the dependence on s/S and the direct dependence on the participant number.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number014905
JournalPhysical Review C - Nuclear Physics
Volume75
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 2007

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Nuclear and High Energy Physics

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