Strangeness and Quark Gluon Plasma

A brief summary of strangeness mile stones is followed by a chemical non-equilibrium statistical hadronization analysis of strangeness results at SPS and RHIC. Strange particle production in AA interactions at \sqrt{s_{NN}}\ge 8.6 GeV can be understood consistently as originating from the deconfined quark--gluon plasma in a sudden hadronization process. Onset of QGP formation as function of energy is placed in the beam energy interval 10--30A GeV/c. Strangeness anomalies at LHC are described.Comment: 30 pages including numerouse figures, tables. Opening Lecture: Strangeness and Quark Gluon Plasma -- what has been learned so far and where do we go at SQM2003, North Carolina, March 2003, submitted to J. Phys.

Enhancement of strange and multi-strange baryons and anti-baryons in SW interactions at 200 GeV/c

Strange and multistrange baryon production is expected to be enhanced in heavy ion interactions if a phase transition from hadronic matter to a Quark-Gluon Plasma takes place. The production yields of Lambda s, <(Lambda)over bar>s, Xi(-)s, and <(Xi)over bar>(+)s relative to the production of negative particles are presented for sulphur-tungsten interactions at 200 GeV/c per nucleon. These production yields are compared to those produced in proton-tungsten interactions and the enhancements of strange and multistrange baryons and antibaryons are presented. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved