Strangeness Production in Heavy-Ion Collisions at STAR

TL;DR

This paper presents new measurements of strange particle production in Cu+Cu and Au+Au collisions at RHIC energies, highlighting differences in particle yields and ratios across system sizes and energies.

Contribution

It provides novel mid-rapidity and high-$p_T$ results for strange particles, comparing Cu+Cu and Au+Au collisions to explore system size effects on strangeness production.

Findings

New $dN/dy$ results for strange particles in Cu+Cu collisions.

Comparison of $ ext{Lambda}/K^{0}_{S}$ ratios between Cu+Cu and Au+Au.

High-$p_T$ $R_{AA}$ for $K^{0}_{S}$ as a function of system size.

Abstract

We report an overview of strangeness production in Cu+Cu and Au+Au collisions at the energies $\sqrt{s_{NN}} =$ 62.4 and 200 GeV. We show new mid-rapidly $dN/dy$ results for the $K^{0}_{S}$, $\Lambda$, $\Xi$, $\Omega$ particles in Cu+Cu \sNN{62} collisions and compare to results in Au+Au \sNN{62} collisions. We show new results for mid-$p_T$ $\Lambda/K^{0}_{S}$ ratios in Cu+Cu \sNN{62} collisions and again compare to ratios in Au+Au \sNN{62} collisions. Finally, we show the high-$p_{T}$ ($\sim 6.2$ GeV/c) $R_{AA}(K^{0}_{S})$ as a function of system size in Au+Au \sNN{200} collisions and compare to $R_{AA}(\pi)$.