Measurement of the Lorentz-FitzGerald Body Contraction

A complete foundational discussion of acceleration in context of Special Relativity is presented. Acceleration allows the measurement of a Lorentz-FitzGerald body contraction created. It is argued that in the back scattering of a probing laser beam from a relativistic flying electron cloud mirror generated by an ultra-intense laser pulse, a first measurement of a Lorentz-FitzGerald body contraction is feasible.Comment: 4 pages Letter, submitted to EPJA, dedicated to memory of Walter Greine

Strangeness Enhancement: Challenges and Successes

Highly effective conversion of kinetic energy into abundant particle multiplicity is the remarkable feature discovered in high energy heavy ion collisions. This short and pedagogic review addresses topical issues related to the understanding of this phenomenon, originating in the creation of the deconfined quark--gluon plasma phase. I consider in depth the apparently simple, yet sometimes misunderstood, intricate issues: a) statistical hadro-chemistry, chemical parameters, b) strange flavor chemical equilibration in quark--gluon plasma, and c) particle yields and sudden hadronization, in the historic perspective of work and competition with my friend Jozsef Zimanyi.Comment: Extended to 28 pages, Dedicated to memory of Prof. Jozsef Zimanyi, presented at Zimanyi75 Memorial Workshop on Hadronic and Quark Matter, July 2-4 2007, Budapest, As Published in EPJ-ST 155, 139-166 (2008

Centrality dependence of strangeness and (anti)hyperon production at BNL RHIC

We evaluate strangeness produced in Au--Au interactions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}=200$ GeV, as function of reaction participant number $A$, and obtain the relative strange quark content at hadronization. Strange baryon and antibaryon rapidity density yields are studied, relative to, and as function of, participant number, and produced hadron yields.Comment: 4 pages including 4 figures, v2 text improvmen