Entropy Production at RHIC

Abstract

For central heavy ion collisions at the RHIC energy, the entropy per unit rapidity dS/dy at freeze-out is extracted with minimal model dependence from available experimental measurements of particle yields, spectra, and source sizes estimated from two-particle interferometry. The extracted entropy rapidity density is consistent with lattice gauge theory results for a thermalized quark-gluon plasma with an energy density estimated from transverse energy production at RHIC.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, Revtex, version to appear in PL