Strangeness equilibration in heavy ion collisions

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Date

2001

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

American Physical Society

Abstract

Using a relativistic transport model for heavy ion collisions at energies that Lire below the threshold for kaon and antikaon production in nucleon-nucleon collisions, we study how their abundances approach the canonical equilibrium during the collisions. We find that kaons are far from chemical equilibrium at the initial and high density stage, and they approach equilibrium only during the expansion stage of the collisions when their production rate is small and becomes comparable to their annihilation rate. In contrast, antikaons approach chemical equilibrium much earlier but eventually fall out of equilibrium again as a result of their large annihilation cross sections in nuclear matter.

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Keywords

SUBTHRESHOLD KAON PRODUCTION, NUCLEUS-NUCLEUS COLLISIONS, UEHLING-UHLENBECK MODEL, PB PLUS PB, ANTIKAON PRODUCTION, CHEMICAL, EQUILIBRATION, K PRODUCTION, EQUATION, MATTER, ENERGIES, Physics

Citation

S. Pal, Che Ming Ko and Z. W. Lin. Phys.Rev.C 64 042201 2001. "Copyright (2001) by the American Physical Society."