Strangeness Enhancement in $p+A$ and $S+A$ Interactions at SPS Energies

Abstract

The systematics of strangeness enhancement is calculated using the HIJING and VENUS models and compared to recent data on $pp$, $pA$ and $AA$ collisions at CERN/SPS energies ($200AGeV$). The HIJING model is used to perform a {\em linear} extrapolation from $pp$ to $AA$. VENUS is used to estimate the effects of final state cascading and possible non-conventional production mechanisms. This comparison shows that the large enhancement of strangeness observed in $S+Au$ collisions, interpreted previously as possible evidence for quark-gluon plasma formation, has its origins in non-equilibrium dynamics of few nucleon systems. % Strangeness enhancement %is therefore traced back to the change in the production dynamics %from $pp$ to minimum bias $pS$ and central $SS$ collisions. A factor of two enhancement of ${\Lambda }^0$ at mid-rapidity is indicated by recent $pS$ data, where on the average {\em one} projectile nucleon interacts with only {\em two} target nucleons. There appears to be another factor of two enhancement in the light ion reaction $SS$ relative to $pS$, when on the average only two projectile nucleons interact with two target ones.

29 pages, 8 figures in uuencoded postscript file

References in corpus (2)

• HIJING 1.0: A Monte Carlo Program for Parton and Particle Production in High Energy Hadronic and Nuclear Collisions
• Strange Particle Abundance in QGP Formed in 200 GeV A Nuclear Collisions

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