Kaon and Lambda productions in relativistic heavy ion collisions

TL;DR

This paper uses a microscopic Boltzmann transport approach to study kaon and lambda production in heavy ion collisions, revealing non-monotonic energy dependence under partonic assumptions and monotonic behavior in hadronic scenarios.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed microscopic model to analyze strange particle production, highlighting the impact of initial phase assumptions on observed energy dependence patterns.

Findings

Non-monotonic horn-like structure for $K^+/\pi^+$ and $\Lambda/\pi$ ratios with partonic initial state.

Monotonic $K^+/\pi^+$ ratio when assuming hadronic initial state.

Reproduction of experimental $K^-/\pi^-$ ratios across energies.

Abstract

A microscopic approach has been employed to study the kaon and $\Lambda$ productions in heavy ion collisions. The productions of $K^+$ and $\Lambda$ have been studied within the framework of Boltzmann transport equation for various beam energies. We find a non-monotonic horn like structure for $K^+/\pi^+$ and $\Lambda/\pi$ when plotted against centre of mass energies ($\sqrt s_{\mathrm NN}$) with the assumption of initial partonic phase for $\sqrt s_{\mathrm NN}$ beyond a certain threshold. However, the ratio $K^+/\pi^+$ shows a monotonic nature when a hadronic initial state is considered for all $\sqrt s_{\mathrm NN}$. Experimental values of $K^-/\pi^-$ for different $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm NN}}$ are also reproduced within the ambit of the same formalism.