Related papers: The Strange Quark-Gluon Plasma
High energy collisions of heavy atomic nuclei allow to create and carefully study a high-density, colour-deconfined state of strongly-interacting matter. According to calculations from lattice Quantum-Chromodynamics, under the conditions of…
It is possible that a system composed of up, down and strange quarks consists the true ground state of nuclear matter at high densities and low temperatures. This exotic plasma, called strange quark matter (SQM), seems to be even more…
In statistical QCD, the thermal properties of the quark-gluon plasma can be determined by studying the in-medium behaviour of heavy quark bound states. The results can be applied to quarkonium production in high energy nuclear collisions,…
We have studied the variation of a thermodynamic quantity, the strange chemical potential, in the phase diagram of nuclear matter, by employing the partition function in each domain and enforcing strangeness conservation. We propose that…
Using renormalization group methods we evaluate the thermal strangeness and charm chemical equilibrium relaxation times in the deconfined quark-gluon plasma. We present a reaction model and evaluate the total production rate of strangeness…
We discuss how the dynamics of an exploding hot fireball of quark--gluon matter impacts the actual phase transition conditions between the deconfined and confined state of matter. We survey the chemical conditions prevailing at…
We give a pedagogical review of the properties of the various meson condensation phases triggered by a large isospin or strangeness imbalance. We argue that these phases are extremely interesting and powerful playground for exploring the…
In this paper I highlight a few selected topics on strange particle production in heavy-ion collisions. By studying the yield and spectra of strange particles we hope to gain understanding of the conditions reached in, and the ensuing…
A description of strange quark matter at finite temperature is given, with emphasis on the inclusion of finite size effects. For massless quarks all thermodynamic quantities can be evaluated analytically, while the case of massive quarks…
The canonical statistical model analysis of strange and multistrange hadron production in central A-A relative to p-p/p-A collisions is presented over the energy range from $\sqrt s=8.73$ GeV up to $\sqrt s =130$ GeV. It is shown that the…
In nucleus-nucleus collisions at relativistic energies a new kind of matter is created, the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP). The phase diagram of such matter and the chemical freeze-out points will be presented in connection to the pseudo-critical…
Numerical studies of the bulk properties of the quark-gluon plasma reveal a pronounced drop in pressure $p$ compared to energy density $\e$ as the deconfining temperature is approached from above. We show by general thermodynamic reasoning…
The fireball created in an ultrarelativistic heavy ion collision is the environment in which all processes providing clues about the possible formation of the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) happen. It is therefore crucial to understand the…
The results of the WA97 collaboration for strange particle production at mid-rapidity in Pb--Pb collisions at 158 GeV A/c at CERN display a strong strangeness enhancement with system size at mid-rapidity which is dependent on the…
After a brief introduction to the physics of bulk strange quark matter (SQM) this review focuses on the properties of low baryon number strangelets presently searched for in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion experiments at CERN and Brookhaven.…
Relativistic heavy ion collisions are studied assuming that particles can be described by a hadron gas in thermal and chemical equilibrium. The exact conservation of baryon number, strangeness and charge are explicitly taken into account.…
Signatures of the formation of a strongly interacting thermalized matter of partons have been observed in nucleus-nucleus, proton-nucleus, and high-multiplicity proton-proton collisions at LHC energies. Strangeness enhancement in such…
Recently we have made considerable progress in our understanding of the behavior of QCD in extreme conditions of high temperature or large baryon number density. Among the highlights are the prediction of a well-characterized true critical…
We study the strangeness production in hot and dense nuclear medium, by requiring the conservation of the baryon density, electric charge fraction and zero net strangeness. The hadronic equation of state is investigated by means of an…
I review the three broad areas where major progress has been reported: The phase structure of strongly interacting matter, the properties of matter at the instant when it freezes out into individual hadrons in the final stage of the…