1 research outputs found
Strangeness Enhancement in and Interactions at SPS Energies
The systematics of strangeness enhancement is calculated using the HIJING and
VENUS models and compared to recent data on , and
collisions at CERN/SPS energies (). The HIJING model is used to
perform a {\em linear} extrapolation from to . VENUS is used to
estimate the effects of final state cascading and possible non-conventional
production mechanisms. This comparison shows that the large enhancement of
strangeness observed in collisions, interpreted previously as possible
evidence for quark-gluon plasma formation, has its origins in non-equilibrium
dynamics of few nucleon systems. % Strangeness enhancement %is therefore traced
back to the change in the production dynamics %from to minimum bias
and central collisions. A factor of two enhancement of at
mid-rapidity is indicated by recent data, where on the average {\em one}
projectile nucleon interacts with only {\em two} target nucleons. There appears
to be another factor of two enhancement in the light ion reaction relative
to , when on the average only two projectile nucleons interact with two
target ones.Comment: 29 pages, 8 figures in uuencoded postscript fil