Strange Baryon Production in Heavy Ion Collisions

Abstract

The rapidity distribution of $\Lambda$ and $\bar{\Lambda }$ produced in nucleus-nucleus collisions at CERN energies is studied in the framework of an independent string model - with quark-antiquark as well as diquark-antidiquark pairs in the nucleon sea. It is shown that, besides the $\Lambda$-$\bar{\Lambda }$ pair production resulting from the fragmentation of sea diquarks, final state interactions of co-moving secondaries $\pi +N\to K+\Lambda$ and $\pi +\bar{N}\to K+\bar{\Lambda }$ are needed in order to reproduce the data. Predictions for $Pb$-$Pb$ collisions are presented.

Plain TeX + epsf, 40 pages; 1 Postscript-table and 7 Postscript figures (uuencoded)