The chemical equilibration volume: measuring the degree of thermalization

Abstract

We address the issue of the degree of equilibrium achieved in a high energy heavy-ion collision. Specifically, we explore the consequences of incomplete strangeness chemical equilibrium. This is achieved over a volume V of the order of the strangeness correlation length and is assumed to be smaller than the freeze-out volume. Probability distributions of strange hadrons emanating from the system are computed for varying sizes of V and simple experimental observables based on these are proposed. Measurements of such observables may be used to estimate V and as a result the degree of strangeness chemical equilibration achieved. This sets a lower bound on the degree of kinetic equilibrium. We also point out that a determination of two-body correlations or second moments of the distributions are not sufficient for this estimation.

16 pages, 15 figures, revtex4

References in corpus (3)

• Particle ratios at RHIC: Effective hadron masses and chemical freeze-out
• Some remarks on the statistical model of heavy ion collisions
• System size dependence of strangeness production at 158 AGeV

Cited by in corpus (6)

• In-Medium Effects on Charmonium Production in Heavy-Ion Collisions
• Centrality Dependence of Thermal Parameters Deduced from Hadron Multiplicities in Au + Au Collisions at sqrt{s_{NN}} = 130 GeV
• Signals of spinodal hadronization: strangeness trapping
• Baryon number and strangeness: signals of a deconfined antecedent
• Fluctuations in the Statistical Model of Relativistic Heavy Ion Collisions
• Chiral symmetry breaking and chemical equilibrium in a heavy-ion collisions