Refine
Year of publication
Document Type
- Preprint (2235) (remove)
Has Fulltext
- yes (2235)
Keywords
- Kollisionen schwerer Ionen (33)
- heavy ion collisions (27)
- Deutsch (23)
- Quark-Gluon-Plasma (14)
- equation of state (13)
- QGP (12)
- heavy-ion collisions (11)
- Kongress (10)
- Syntax (10)
- quark-gluon plasma (10)
Institute
- Physik (1349)
- Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies (FIAS) (962)
- Informatik (759)
- Medizin (173)
- Extern (82)
- Biowissenschaften (73)
- Ernst Strüngmann Institut (70)
- Mathematik (48)
- MPI für Hirnforschung (47)
- Psychologie (46)
Properties of dense quark matter in and out of chemical equilibrium are studied within the SU(3) Nambu Jona-Lasinio model. In addition to the 4 fermion scalar and vector terms the model includes also the 6 fermion flavour mixing interaction. First we study a novel form of deconfined matter, meso-matter, which is composed of equal number of quarks and antiquarks. It can be thought of as a strongly compressed meson gas where mesons are melted into their elementary constituents, quarks and antiquarks. Strongly bound states in this quark antiquark matter are predicted for all flavour combinations of qq pairs. The maximum binding energy reaches up to 180 MeV per qq pair for mixtures with about 70% of strange (s¯s) pairs. Equilibrated baryon rich quark matter with various flavour compositions is also studied. In this case only shallow bound states appear in systems with a significant admixture(about 40%) of strange quarks (strangelets). Their binding energies are quite sensitive to the relative strengths of scalar and vector interactions. The common property of all these bound states is that they appear at high particle densities when the chiral symmetry is nearly restored. Thermal properties of meso-matter as well as chemically equilibrated strange quark matter are also investigated. Possible decay modes of these bound states are discussed.
Equation of state of baryon rich quark matter is studied within the SU(3) Nambu Jona-Lasinio model with flavour mixing interaction. Possible bound states (strangelets) and chiral phase transitions in this matter are investigated at various values of strangeness fraction rs. The model predictions are very sensitive to the ratio of vector and scalar coupling constants, ¾ = GV /GS. At ¾ = 0.5 and zero temperature the maximum binding energy (about 15 MeV per baryon) takes place at rs C 0.4. Such strangelets are negatively charged and have typical life times < 10 7 s. The calculations are carried out also at finite temperatures. They show that bound states exist up to temperatures of about 15 MeV. The model predicts a first order chiral phase transition at finite baryon densities. The parameters of this phase transition are calculated as a function of rs.
The equilibration of hot and dense nuclear matter produced in the central cell of central Au+Au collisions at RHIC (sqrt s = 200 A GeV) energies is studied within a microscopic transport model. The pressure in the cell becomes isotropic at t approx 5 fm/c after beginning of the collision. Within the next 15 fm/c the expansion of matter in the cell proceeds almost isentropically with the entropy per baryon ratio S/A approx 150, and the equation of state in the (P,epsilon) plane has a very simple form, P=0.15 epsilon. Comparison with the statistical model of an ideal hadron gas indicates that the time t approx 20 fm/c may be too short to reach the fully equilibrated state. Particularly, the creation of long-lived resonance-rich matter in the cell decelerates the relaxation to chemical equilibrium. This resonance-abundant state can be detected experimentally after the thermal freeze-out of particles.
The equilibration of hot and dense nuclear matter produced in the central region in central Au+Au collisions at square root s = 200A GeV is studied within the microscopic transport model UrQMD. The pressure here becomes isotropic at t approx 5 fm/c. Within the next 15 fm/c the expansion of the matter proceeds almost isentropically with the entropy per baryon ratio S/A approx 150. During this period the equation of state in the (P, epsilon)-plane has a very simple form, P = 0.15 epsilon. Comparison with the statistical model (SM) of an ideal hadron gas reveals that the time of approx 20 fm/c may be too short to attain the fully equilibrated state. Particularly, the fractions of resonances are overpopulated in contrast to the SM values. The creation of such a long-lived resonance-rich state slows down the relaxation to chemical equilibrium and can be detected experimentally.
The yields of strange particles are calculated with the UrQMD model for p,Pb(158 AGeV)Pb collisions and compared to experimental data. The yields are enhanced in central collisions if compared to proton induced or peripheral Pb+Pb collisions. The enhancement is due to secondary interactions. Nevertheless, only a reduction of the quark masses or equivalently an increase of the string tension provides an adequate description of the large observed enhancement factors (WA97 and NA49). Furthermore, the yields of unstable strange resonances as the Lambda star(1520) resonance or the phi meson are considerably affected by hadronic rescattering of the decay products.
Enhanced antiproton production in Pb(160 AGeV)+Pb reactions: evidence for quark gluon matter?
(2000)
The centrality dependence of the antiproton per participant ratio is studied in Pb(160 AGeV)+Pb reactions. Antiproton production in collisions of heavy nuclei at the CERN/SPS seems considerably enhanced as compared to conventional hadronic physics, given by the antiproton production rates in pp and antiproton annihilation in p p reactions. This enhancement is consistent with the observation of strong in-medium effects in other hadronic observables and may be an indication of partial restoration of chiral symmetry.
Assuming a cryptographically strong cyclic group G of prime order q and a random hash function H, we show that ElGamal encryption with an added Schnorr signature is secure against the adaptive chosen ciphertext attack, in which an attacker can freely use a decryption oracle except for the target ciphertext. We also prove security against the novel one-more-decyption attack. Our security proofs are in a new model, corresponding to a combination of two previously introduced models, the Random Oracle model and the Generic model. The security extends to the distributed threshold version of the scheme. Moreover, we propose a very practical scheme for private information retrieval that is based on blind decryption of ElGamal ciphertexts.
REVTEX, 27 pages incl. 10 figures and 3 tables; Phys. Rev. C (in press) Journal-ref: Phys.Rev. C62 (2000) 064906. We study the local equilibrium in the central V = 125 fm3 cell in heavy-ion collisions at energies from 10.7 A GeV (AGS) to 160 A GeV (SPS) calculated in the microscopic transport model. In the present paper the hadron yields and energy spectra in the cell are compared with those of infinite nuclear matter, as calculated within the same model. The agreement between the spectra in the two systems is established for times t >= 10 fm/c in the central cell. The cell results do not deviate noticeably from the infinite matter calculations with rising incident energy, in contrast to the apparent discrepancy with predictions of the statistical model (SM) of an ideal hadron gas. The entropy of this state is found to be very close to the maximum entropy, while hadron abundances and energy spectra differ significantly from those of the SM.
A recent paper on energy dependence of strangeness production in A+A and p+p interactions written by Dunlop and Ogilvie (Phys. ReV. C61 031901(R) (2000) indicates that there is a significant misunderstanding about the concept of strangeness enhancement and its role as a signal of Quark Gluon Plasma creation. In this comment we will try to clarify some essential points. 25.75.Dw, 13.85.Ni, 21.65.+f
The statistical production of antibaryons is considered within the canonical ensemble formulation. We demonstrate that the antibaryon suppression in small systems due to the exact baryon number conservation is rather different in the baryon-free (B=0) and baryon-rich (B>1) systems. At constant values of temperature and baryon density in the baryon-rich systems the density of the produced antibaryons is only weakly dependent on the size of the system. For realistic hadronization conditions this dependence appears to be close to B/(B+1) which is in agreement with the preliminary data of the NA49 Collaboration for the antiproton/pion ratio in nucleus-nucleus collisions at the CERN SPS energies. However, a consistent picture of antibaryon production within the statistical hadronization model has not yet been achieved. This is because the condition of constant hadronization temperature in the baryon-free systems leads to a contradiction with the data on the antiproton/pion ratio in e+e- interactions.
Recent progress in the understanding of the high density phase of neutron stars advances the view that a substantial fraction of the matter consists of hyperons. The possible impacts of a highly attractive interaction between hyperons on the properties of compact stars is investigated. We find that the equation of state exhibits a second stable minimum at large hyperon contents which is in accord with existing hypernuclear data. This second solution gives rise to new effects for neutron star properties which are similar to the ones proposed for the deconfinement transition to strange quark matter and absolutely stable strange stars. We find that the corresponding hyperstars can have rather small radii of R=6-8 km independent of the mass. PACS: 26.60+c, 21.65+f, 97.60.Gb, 97.60.Jd
A nonlinear chiral SU(3) approach including the spin 3 2 decuplet is developed to describe dense matter. The coupling constants of the baryon resonances to the scalar mesons are determined from the decuplet vacuum masses and SU(3) symmetry relations. Di erent methods of mass generation show significant differences in the properties of the spin- 3 2 particles and in the nuclear equation of state
Compelling evidence for a new form of matter has been claimed to be formed in Pb+Pb collisions at SPS. We critically review two suggested signatures for this new state of matter: First the suppression of the J/psi , which should be strongly suppressed in the QGP by two different mechanisms, the color-screening [1] and the QCD-photoe ect [2]. Secondly the measured particle, in particular strange hadronic, ratios might signal the freeze-out from a quark-gluon phase.
A sign reversal of the directed flow parameter v1 in the central rapidity region in Au+Au collisions at s = 200 AGeV is predicted. This anti-flow is shown to be linked to the expansion of the hot matter created. In line with this observation the predicted elliptic flow parameter v2 of various particle species is linked to the mean free path of these particles.
In ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions, early stage multiple scatterings may lead to an increase of the color electric field strength. Consequently, particle production - especially heavy quark (and di-quark) production - is greatly enhanced according to the Schwinger mechanism. We test this idea via the Ultra-relativistic Quantum Molecular Dynamics model (UrQMD) for Au+Au collisions at the full RHIC energy (ps = 200 AGeV). Relative to p+p collisions, a factor of 60, 20 and 7 enhancement respectively, for (sss), (ss), and , (s) is predicted for a model with increased color electric field strength.
We compute bremsstrahlung arising from the acceleration of individual charged baryons and mesons during the time evolution of high-energy Au+Au collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider using a microscopic transport model. We elucidate the connection between bremsstrahlung and charge stop- ping by colliding artificial pure proton on pure neutron nuclei. From the inten- sity of low energy bremsstrahlung, the time scale and the degree of stopping could be accurately extracted without measuring any hadronic observables. PACS: 25.75.-q, 13.85.Qk
We study b¯b and c¯c production and the influence of nuclear shadowing at LHC and RHIC energies. We find a significant reduction in the production cross section of both charm and bottom at RHIC and LHC. Bound states such as and J/psi are suppressed by this reduction in the charm production cross sections. Therefore, J/psi suppression may not be useful as a signature for the quark gluon plasma. PACS: 12.38.Mh, 25.75.-q, 24.85.+p, 14.65.Dw
We present efficient non-malleable commitment schemes based on standard assumptions such as RSA and Discrete-Log, and under the condition that the network provides publicly available RSA or Discrete-Log parameters generated by a trusted party. Our protocols require only three rounds and a few modular exponentiations. We also discuss the difference between the notion of non-malleable commitment schemes used by Dolev, Dwork and Naor [DDN00] and the one given by Di Crescenzo, Ishai and Ostrovsky [DIO98].
Deutsche Fassung: Vertragswelten: Das Recht in der Fragmentierung von private governance regimes. Rechtshistorisches Journal 17, 1998, 234-265. Italienische Fassung: Mondi contrattuali. Discourse rights nel diritto privato. In: Gunther Teubner, Diritto policontesturale: Prospettive giuridiche della pluralizzazione dei mondi sociali. La città del sole, Neapel 1999, 113-142. Portugiesische Fassung: Mundos contratuais: o direito na fragmentacao de regimes de private governance. In: Gunther Teubner, Direito, Sistema, Policontexturalidade, Editora Unimep, Piracicaba Sao Paolo, Brasil 2005, 269-298.
By using the background field method of QCD in a path integral approach, we derive the equation of motion for the classical chromofield and for the gluon in a system containing the gluon and the classical chromofield simul- taneously. This inhomogeneous field equation contains a current term, which is the expectation value of a composite operator including linear, square and cubic terms of the gluon field. We also derive identities which the current should obey from the gauge invariance. We calculate the current at the leading order where the current induced by the gluon is opposite in sign to that induced by the quark. This is just the feature of the non-Abelian gauge field theory which has asymptotic freedom. Physically, the induced current can be treated as the displacement current in the polarized vacuum, and its e ect is equivalent to redefining the field and the coupling constant. PACS: 12.38.-t,12.38.Aw,11.15.-q,12.38.Mh
A model for the production of quarkonium states in the midrapidity region at RHIC and LHC energy range is presented which explores well understood properties of QCD only. An increase of the quarkonium hadronisation time with the initial energy leads to a gradual change of the most important phenomena from fixed target- to collider-energies. We evaluate nuclear e ects in the quarkonium production due to medium modification of the momentum distribution of the heavy quarks produced in the hard interactions, i.e. due to the broadening of the transverse momentum distribution. Other nuclear effects, i.e. nuclear shadowing and parton energy loss, are also evaluated.
We investigate the excitation function of quark-gluon plasma formation and of directed in-plane flow of nucleons in the energy range of the BNLAGS and for the Ekin Lab = 40A GeV Pb+Pb collisions performed recently at the CERN-SPS. We employ the three-fluid model with dynamical unification of kinetically equilibrated fluid elements. Within our model with first-order phase transition at high density, droplets of QGP coexisting with hadronic matter are produced already at BNL-AGS energies, Ekin Lab C 10A GeV. A substantial decrease of the isentropic velocity of sound, however, requires higher energies, Ekin Lab C 40A GeV. We show the e ect on the flow of nucleons in the reaction plane. According to our model calculations, kinematic requirements and EoS effects work hand-in-hand at Ekin Lab = 40A GeV to allow the observation of the dropping velocity of sound via an increase of the directed flow around midrapidity as compared to top BNL-AGS energy.
We investigate the excitation function of directed flow, which can provide a clear signature of the creation of the QGP and demonstrate that the minimum of the directed flow does not correspond to the softest point of the EoS for isentropic expansion. A novel technique measuring the compactness is introduced to determine the QGP transition in relativistic-heavy ion collisions: The QGP transition will lead to higher compression and therefore to higher compactness of the source in coordinate space. This e ect can be observed by pion interferometry. We propose to measure the compactness of the source in the appropriate principal axis frame of the compactness tensor in coordinate space.
Compactness is introduced as a new method to search for the onset of the quark matter transition in relativistic heavy ion collisions. That transition supposedly leads to stronger compression and higher compactness of the source in coordinate space. That effect could be observed via pion interferometry. We propose to measure the compactness of the source in the appropriate principal axis frame of the compactness tensor in coordinate space.
Elliptic flow from nuclear collisions is a hadronic observable sensitive to the early stages of system evolution. We report first results on elliptic flow of charged particles at midrapidity in Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN)=130 GeV using the STAR TPC at RHIC. The elliptic flow signal, v_2, averaged over transverse momentum, reaches values of about 6% for relatively peripheral collisions and decreases for the more central collisions. This can be interpreted as the observation of a higher degree of thermalization than at lower collision energies. Pseudorapidity and transverse momentum dependence of elliptic flow are also presented.
The quantum mechanical formula for Mayer s second cluster integral for the gas of relativistic particles with hard-core interaction is derived. The proper pion volume calculated with quantum mechanical formula is found to be an order of magnitude larger than its classical evaluation. The second cluster integral for the pion gas is calculated in quantum mechanical approach with account for both attractive and hard-core repulsive interactions. It is shown that, in the second cluster approximation, the repulsive -interactions as well as the finite width of resonances give important but almost canceling contributions. In contrast, an appreciable deviation from the ideal gas of pions and pion resonances is observed beyond the second clus- ter approximation in the framework of the Van der Waals excluded-volume model.
The equation of state for the pion gas is analyzed within the third virial approximation. The second virial coeffcient is found from the pi pi -scattering data, while the third one is considered as a free parameter. The proposed model leads to a first-order phase transition from the pion gas to a more dense phase at the temperature Tpt < 136 MeV. Due to relatively low temperature this phase transition cannot be related to the deconfinement. This suggests that a new phase of hadron matter hot pion liquid may exist.
The statistical coalescence model for the production of open and hidden charm is considered within the canonical ensemble formulation. The data for the J/psi multiplicity in Pb+Pb collisions at 158 A·GeV are used for the model prediction of the open charm yield. We find a strong enhancement of the open charm production, by a factor of about 2 4, over the standard hard-collision model extrapolation from nucleon-nucleon to nucleus-nucleus collisions. A possible mechanism of the open charm enhancement in A+A collisions at the SPS energies is proposed.
Virtuelles Lernen in Gruppen : Rollenspiele und Online-Diskussionen und die Bedeutung von Lerntypen
(2000)
Ziel dieses Beitrags ist, Erfahrungen aus einem virtuellen Tutorium, in dem der Gruppenarbeit und Rollenspielen in Chats eine besondere Bedeutung zukam, auszuwerten. Eingangs wird die Lernumgebung vorgestellt, die auf Basis standardisierter Internetdienste realisiert wurde und vor allem kooperatives Lernen durch Anwendung und Übung in den Mittelpunkt stellte. Diese Evaluation der Veranstaltungen, deren Untersuchung abschließend einen Bezug zwischen Lerntypen und Mediennutzungspräferenzen hergestellt, soll einen Beitrag zur Weiterentwicklung und Ausgestaltung internetbasierter Lehrveranstaltungen leisten.
Chunk parsing has focused on the recognition of partial constituent structures at the level of individual chunks. Little attention has been paid to the question of how such partial analyses can be combined into larger structures for complete utterances. Such larger structures are not only desirable for a deeper syntactic analysis. They also constitute a necessary prerequisite for assigning function-argument structure. The present paper offers a similaritybased algorithm for assigning functional labels such as subject, object, head, complement, etc. to complete syntactic structures on the basis of prechunked input. The evaluation of the algorithm has concentrated on measuring the quality of functional labels. It was performed on a German and an English treebank using two different annotation schemes at the level of function argument structure. The results of 89.73% correct functional labels for German and 90.40%for English validate the general approach.
Der TUSNELDA-Standard : ein Korpusannotierungsstandard zur Unterstützung linguistischer Forschung
(2001)
Die Verwendung von Standards für die Annotierung größerer Sammlungen elektronischer Texte (Korpora) ist eine Voraussetzung für eine mögliche Wiederverwendung dieser Korpora. Dieser Artikel stellt einen Korpusannotierungsstandard vor, der die Anforderungen der Untersuchung unterschiedlichster linguistischer Phänomene berücksichtigt. Der Standard wurde im SFB 441 an der Universität Tübingen entwickelt. Er geht von bestehenden Standards, insbesondere CES und TEI, aus, die sich als teilweise zu ausführlich und zu wenig restriktiv,teilweise auch als nicht ausdrucksstark genug erweisen, um den Bedürfnissen korpusbasierter linguistischer Forschung gerecht zu werden.
Chunk parsing has focused on the recognition of partial constituent structures at the level of individual chunks. Little attention has been paid to the question of how such partial analyses can be combined into larger structures for complete utterances. The TüSBL parser extends current chunk parsing techniques by a tree-construction component that extends partial chunk parses to complete tree structures including recursive phrase structure as well as function-argument structure. TüSBLs tree construction algorithm relies on techniques from memory-based learning that allow similarity-based classification of a given input structure relative to a pre-stored set of tree instances from a fully annotated treebank. A quantitative evaluation of TüSBL has been conducted using a semi-automatically constructed treebank of German that consists of appr. 67,000 fully annotated sentences. The basic PARSEVAL measures were used although they were developed for parsers that have as their main goal a complete analysis that spans the entire input.This runs counter to the basic philosophy underlying TüSBL, which has as its main goal robustness of partially analyzed structures.
Maschinelles Lernen wird häufig zur effzienten Annotation großer Datenmengen eingesetzt. Die Forschung zu maschinellen Lernverfahren beschränkt sich i.a. darauf unterschiedliche Lernverfahren zu vergelichen oder die optimale größe der Trainingsdaten zu bestimmen. Bisher wurde jedoch nicht untersucht, in wie weit sich linguistisches Wissen bei der Aufgabendefinition positiv auswirken kann. Dies soll hier anhand des Lernens von Base-Nominalphrasen mit drei unterschiedlichen Definitionen untersucht werden. Die Definitionen unterscheiden sich im Grad der linguistisch motivierten Erweiterungen, die zu einer eher praktisch motivierten ersten Definition hinzu kamen. Die Untersuchungen ergaben, dass sich die Anzahl der falsch klasssifizierten Wörter um ein Drittel reduzieren lässt.
In der Abteilung Grammatik des Instituts für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, wird derzeit ein neues Projekt entwickelt, und zwar das einer Grammatik des Deutschen im europäischen Vergleich (GDE). Dieses Projekt fügt sich ein in die kontrastive Tradition des IDS, ist jedoch andererseits auch in vieler Hinsicht innovativ. Bevor ich das Projekt im Einzelnen vorstelle, versuche ich den Bogen zurück zu den kontrastiven Grammatiken zu schlagen. Gerade die Leserschaft polnischer Germanisten braucht an die Tradition kontrastiver Grammatikschreibung sicher nicht eigens erinnert zu werden. Denn diese Tradition, die untrennbar mit dem Namen Ulrich Engel verknüpft ist, ist gerade erst in der neu erschienenen deutsch-polnischen kontrastiven Grammatik kulminiert. Im Bereich der kontrastiven Grammatiken zu Sprachenpaaren, von denen das Deutsche ein Element ist, verfügt das IDS also über eine vergleichsweise reiche Tradition. Am IDS oder in Kooperation mit dem IDS wurden kontrastive Grammatiken zu den Sprachenpaaren Deutsch – Französisch (Zemb 1978), Deutsch – Serbokroatisch , Deutsch – Spanisch (Cartegena/Gauger 1989), Deutsch – Rumänisch (Engel u.a. 1993) erarbeitet. Zum Sprachenpaar Englisch – Deutsch liegt mit Hawkins 1986 eine typologisch-vergleichende Grammatik vor. Die deutsch-polnische kontrastive Grammatik, die unter der Leitung von Ulrich Engel erarbeitet wurde, ist 1999 erscheinen. Abraham 1994 und Glinz 1994 konfrontieren das Deutsche, mit durchaus unterschiedlicher Akzentsetzung, mit mehreren anderen europäischen Sprachen. An der Berliner Humboldt-Universität laufen derzeit die Vorarbeiten zu einer deutsch-russischen kontrastiven Grammatik (Initiative Wolfgang Gladrow und Michail Kotin). Die Aufgabe einer 'Grammatik des Deutschen im europäischen Kontext' ist also hinlänglich vorbereitet.
Recent results on transverse mass spectra of J/psi and psi prime mesons in central Pb+Pb collisions at 158 AGeV are considered. It is shown that those results support a hypothesis of statistical production of charmonia at hadronization and suggest the early thermal freeze-out of J/psi and psi prime mesons. Based on this approach the collective transverse velocity of hadronizing quark gluon plasma is estimated to be <v^H_T> \approx 0.2. Predictions for transverse mass spectra of hidden and open charm mesons at SPS and RHIC are discussed.
We investigate the properties of charge neutral equilibrium cold quark matter within the Nambu Jona-Lasinio model. The calculations are carried out for di erent ratios of coupling constants characterizing the vector and scalar 4 fermion interaction, xi = GV /GS. It is shown that for xi < 0.4 matter is self bound and for xi < 0.65 it has a first order phase transition of the liquid gas type. The Gibbs conditions in the mixed phase are applied for the case of two chemical potentials associated with the baryon number and electric charge. The characteristics of the quark stars are calculated for xi = 0, 0.5 and 1. It is found that the phase transition leads to a strong density variation at the surface of these stars. For xi = 1 the properties of quark stars show behaviors typical for neutron stars. At >< 0.4 the stars near to the maximum mass have a large admixture of strange quarks in their interiors. PACS number: 14.65.-q, 26.60.+c, 97.10.-q
The relaxation of hot nuclear matter to an equilibrated state in the central zone of heavy-ion collisions at energies from AGS to RHIC is studied within the microscopic UrQMD model. It is found that the system reaches the (quasi)equilibrium stage for the period of 10-15 fm/c. Within this time the matter in the cell expands nearly isentropically with the entropy to baryon ratio S/A = 150 - 170. Thermodynamic characteristics of the system at AGS and at SPS energies at the endpoints of this stage are very close to the parameters of chemical and thermal freeze-out extracted from the thermal fit to experimental data. Predictions are made for the full RHIC energy square root s = 200$ AGeV. The formation of a resonance-rich state at RHIC energies is discussed.
Compelling evidence for the creation of a new form of matter has been claimed to be found in Pb+Pb collisions at SPS. We discuss the uniqueness of often proposed experimental signatures for quark matter formation in relativistic heavy ion collisions. It is demonstrated that so far none of the proposed signals like J/psi meson production/suppression, strangeness enhancement, dileptons, and directed flow unambigiously show that a phase of deconfined matter has been formed in SPS Pb+Pb collisions. We emphasize the need for systematic future measurements to search for simultaneous irregularities in the excitation functions of several observables in order to come close to pinning the properties of hot, dense QCD matter from data.
In high energy p+p(bar) interactions the mean multiplicity and transverse mass spectra of neutral mesons from eta to Upsilon (m = 0.5 - 10 GeV/c^2) and the transverse mass spectra of pions (m_T > 1 GeV/c^2) reveal a remarkable behaviour: they follow, over more than 10 orders of magnitude, the power-law function:The parameters C and P are energy dependent, but similar for all mesons produced at the same collision energy. This scaling resembles that expected in the statistical description of hadron production: the parameter P plays the role of a temperature and the normalisation constant C is analogous to the system volume. The fundamental difference is, however, in the form of the distribution function. In order to reproduce the experimental results and preserve the basic structure of the statistical approach the Boltzmann factor e^(-E/T) appearing in standard statistical mechanics has to be substituted by a power-law factor (E/Lambda)^(-P).
Charge fluctuations studied on event-by-event basis have been recently suggested to provide a signal of the equilibrium quark-gluon plasma produced in heavy-ion collisions at high energies. It is argued that the fluctuations generated at the early collision stage when the energy is released can fake the signal. PACS 25.75.-q, 12.38.Mh, 24.60.-k
The quark-molecular-dynamics model is used to study microscopically the dynamics of the coloured quark phase and the subsequent hadron formation in relativistic S+Au collisions at the CERN-SPS. Particle spectra and hadron ratios are compared to both data and the results of hadronic transport calculations. The non-equilibrium dynamics of hadronization and the loss of correlation among quarks are studied.