Particle Ratios, Equilibration, and the QCD Phase Boundary

Abstract

We discuss the status of thermal model descriptions of particle ratios in central nucleus-nucleus collisions at ultra-relativistic energy. An alternative to the ``Cleymans-Redlich'' interpretation of the freeze-out trajectory is given in terms of the total baryon density. Emphasis is placed on the relation between the chemical equilibration parameters and the QCD phase boundary. Furthermore, we trace the essential difference between thermal model analyses of data from collisions between elementary particles and from heavy ion collisions as due to a transition from local strangeness conservation to percolation of strangeness over large volumes, as occurs naturally in a deconfined medium. We also discuss predictions of the thermal model for composite particle production.

Contribution to SQM2001 Conference, submitted to J. Phys. G

References in corpus (4)

• Hadron production in Au-Au collisions at RHIC
• Maximum Relative Strangeness Content in Heavy Ion Collisions Around 30 A.GeV
• Evidence for chemical equilibration at RHIC
• Experimental Conference Summary

Cited by in corpus (62)

• Hadron production in central nucleus-nucleus collisions at chemical freeze-out
• Decoding the phase structure of QCD via particle production at high energy
• Comparison of Chemical Freeze-Out Criteria in Heavy-Ion Collisions
• Production of light nuclei, hypernuclei and their antiparticles in relativistic nuclear collisions
• Properties of hot and dense matter from relativistic heavy ion collisions
• Statistical hadronization of charm in heavy-ion collisions at SPS, RHIC and LHC
• Multi-Strange Baryon Production in Au-Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 130 GeV
• Hadron yields and the phase diagram of strongly interacting matter
• Thermalization of fermionic quantum fields
• Loosely-bound objects produced in nuclear collisions at the LHC
• Production of ${}^4$He and ${}^4\overline{\text{He}}$ in Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}$ = 2.76 TeV at the LHC
• Status of Chemical Freeze-Out
• Equilibrium Statistical-Thermal Models in High-Energy Physics
• Description of Hot and Dense Hadron Gas Properties in a New Excluded-Volume model
• The influence of strange quarks on QCD phase diagram and chemical freeze-out: Results from the hadron resonance gas model
• EMMI Rapid Reaction Task Force Meeting on 'Quark Matter in Compact Star'
• Statistical production of antikaon nuclear bound states in heavy ion collisions
• An overview of the experimental study of quark-gluon matter in high-energy nucleus-nucleus collisions
• Production of Light Nuclei in Heavy Ion Collisions Within Multiple Freezeout Scenario
• Bootstraping the QCD Critical Point
• Strange hadron production in heavy ion collisions from SPS to RHIC
• Conditions driving chemical freeze-out
• Constant Trace Anomaly as a Universal Condition for the Chemical Freeze-Out
• Net-charge probability distributions in heavy ion collisions at chemical freeze-out
• Search for weakly decaying $\overline{\Lambda \mathrm{n}}$ and $\Lambda \Lambda$ exotic bound states in central Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}$ = 2.76 TeV
• Entropy production in pp and Pb-Pb collisions at energies available at the CERN Large Hadron Collider
• Feeddown contributions from unstable nuclei in relativistic heavy-ion collisions
• Particle production in Ultra-relativistic Heavy-Ion Collisions : A Statistical-Thermal Model Review
• Evidence for chemical equilibration at RHIC
• Effect of magnetic field on the charge and thermal transport properties of hot and dense QCD matter
• Transverse Energy per Charged Particle and Freeze-Out Criteria in Heavy-Ion Collisions
• Ultrarelativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions and the quark-gluon plasma
• Quarkonia and Quark Drip Lines in Quark-Gluon Plasma
• Charged Particle and Photon Multiplicity, and Transverse Energy Production in High-Energy Heavy-Ion Collisions
• Chemical Freeze-Out and Higher Order Multiplicity Moments
• Probing chemical freeze-out criteria in relativistic nuclear collisions with coarse grained transport simulations
• Possible interrelations among chemical freezeout conditions
• Light nuclei in the hadron resonance gas
• Viscous properties of hot and dense QCD matter in the presence of a magnetic field
• Statistical hadronization of charm at SPS, RHIC and LHC
• The Critical Endpoint of Bootstrap and Lattice QCD Matter
• Charmonium from Statistical Hadronization of Heavy Quarks -- a Probe for Deconfinement in the Quark-Gluon Plasma
• Saturation of Transverse Energy per Charged Hadron and Freeze-Out Criteria in Heavy-Ion Collisions
• Cumulative effects of collision integral, strong magnetic field, and quasiparticle description on charge and heat transport in thermal QCD medium
• Measurements of chemical potentials in Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}=5.02$ TeV
• Chemical freeze-out in Hawking-Unruh radiation and quark-hadron transition
• A schematic model for QCD II: finite temperature regime
• Effect of inverse magnetic catalysis on conserved charge fluctuations in hadron resonance gas model
• Saturation of $E_T/N_{ch}$ and Freeze-Out Criteria in Heavy-Ion Collisions
• Single photons from Pb+Pb collisions at CERN SPS, QGP vs. hadronic gas
• The effect of flow on Hadronic Spectra in an Excluded-Volume Model
• Rapidity dependence of the proton-to-pion ratio in Au+Au and p+p collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 62.4 and 200 GeV
• Non-identical particle correlation analysis as a probe of transverse flow
• Strangeness chemical potential from the baryons relative to the kaons particle ratios
• Hadronization correspondence of Hawking-Unruh radiation from rotating and electrically charged black holes
• Transverse Energy per Charged Particle in Heavy-Ion Collisions: Role of Collective Flow
• From chemical freezeout to critical conditions in heavy ion collisions
• Universal descriptions of chemical freeze-out based on pressure and specific heat
• Unruh thermalization, gluon condensation and freeze-out
• The rapidity dependence of the proton-to-pion ratio in Au+Au and p+p collisions at sqrt(sNN) = 62.4 and 200 GeV
• Influence of correlations between yields on the chemical freeze-out temperature
• Vorticity-induced modifications of chemical freeze-out in heavy-ion collisions