Strangeness Chemical Equilibration in QGP at RHIC and LHC

We study, in the dynamically evolving QGP fireball formed in relativistic heavy ion collisions at RHIC and LHC, the growth of strangeness yield toward and beyond the chemical equilibrium. We account for the contribution of the direct strangeness production and evaluate the thermal-QCD strangeness production mechanisms. The specific yield of strangeness per entropy, s/S, is the primary target variable. We explore the effect of collision impact parameter, i.e., fireball size, on kinetic strangeness chemical equilibration in QGP. Insights gained in study the RHIC data with regard to the dynamics of the fireball are applied to the study strangeness production at the LHC. We use these results and consider the strange hadron relative particle yields at RHIC and LHC in a systematic fashion. We consider both the dependence on s/S and directly participant number dependence.Comment: 21 pages, 13 figures, PRC in press. Strangeness production recomputed with K-factor K=1.7. Particle yields recomputed with SHARE 2.

Strangeness Production in Chemically Non-Equilibrated Parton Plasma

Strangeness production was investigated during the equilibration of a gluon dominated parton plasma produced at RHIC and LHC energies. The time evolution of parton densities are followed by a set of rate equations in a 1-dimensional expanding system. The strangeness production will depend on the initial chemical equilibration level and in our case the parton densities will remain far from the full equilibrium. We investigate the influence of gluon fragmentation on final strangeness content.Comment: 12 pages (LaTeX) + 2 postscript figures (tarred, compressed, uuencoded) included. Review to appear in Proceedings of Strangeness'95, Tucson, Arizona, Jan. 4--6 1995. (American Institute of Physics

Strangeness Content in the Nucleon

I review recent studies of strangeness content in the nucleon pertaining to the flavor-singlet $g_A^0$, the $\bar{s}s$ matrix element and the strangeness electric and magnetic form factors $G_E^s(q^2)$ and $G_M^s(q^2)$, based on lattice QCD calculations. I shall also discuss the relevance of incorporating the strangeness content in nuclei in regard to strange baryon-antibaryon productions from proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions at SPS and RHIC energies.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures, Invited talk at V Int. Conf. on Strangeness in Quark Matter, Berkeley, CA, July 20--25, 200

Strangeness Production in Nuclear Matter and Expansion Dynamics

Thermodynamical properties of hot and dense nuclear matter are analyzed and compared for different equation of state (EoS). It is argued that the softest point of the equation of state and the strangeness separation on the phase boundary can manifest themselves in observables. The influence of the EoS and the order of the phase transition on the expansion dynamics of nuclear matter and strangeness excitation function is analyzed. It is shown that bulk properties of strangeness production in A-A collisions depend only weakly on the particular form of the EoS. The predictions of different models are related with experimental data on strangeness production.Comment: 38 page