Linking Dynamical and Thermal Models of Ultrarelativistic Nuclear Scattering

Abstract

To analyse ultrarelativistic nuclear interactions, usually either dynamical models like the string model are employed, or a thermal treatment based on hadrons or quarks is applied. String models encounter problems due to high string densities, thermal approaches are too simplistic considering only average distributions, ignoring fluctuations. We propose a completely new approach, providing a link between the two treatments, and avoiding their main shortcomings: based on the string model, connected regions of high energy density are identified for single events, such regions referred to as quark matter droplets. Each individual droplet hadronizes instantaneously according to the available n-body phase space. Due to the huge number of possible hadron configurations, special Monte Carlo techniques have been developed to calculate this disintegration.Comment: Complete paper enclosed as postscript file (uuencoded