A method for probing the formation of quark matter

Based on a multi-phase transport model for relativistic heavy-ion collisions, effects of the parton scatterings on the production of strangeness in relativistic heavy-ion collisions are studied. It is found that the distributions of strange quark and strange baryon, especially for the double strangeness $\Xi^{-}$, are significantly affected by the parton scatterings in heavy-ion collisions below $\sqrt{s_{NN}}\sim$ 10 GeV. Given parton scatterings as a signal of the formation of quark matter, the transverse momentum distribution of the ratio of single and double strangeness $(\Lambda+\Sigma^{0})/\Xi^{-}$ produced in heavy-ion collisions may serve as a potential probe of the emergence of quark matter, or equivalently, the occurrence of hadron-quark phase transition in relativistic heavy-ion collisions.