Freeze-out conditions from strangeness observables at RHIC

TL;DR

This paper determines chemical freeze-out conditions at RHIC using strangeness observables, revealing higher freeze-out temperatures at high energies and aligning with recent lattice QCD insights.

Contribution

It introduces a combined analysis of net-Kaon fluctuations and strange anti-baryon ratios to refine freeze-out condition estimates at RHIC.

Findings

Enhanced freeze-out conditions at high beam energies.

Agreement with recent lattice QCD studies.

Strange hadron yield ratios support the new freeze-out conditions.

Abstract

We determine chemical freeze-out conditions from strangeness observables measured at RHIC beam energies. Based on a combined analysis of lowest-order net-Kaon fluctuations and strange anti-baryon over baryon yield ratios we obtain visibly enhanced freeze-out conditions at high beam energies compared to previous studies which analyzed net-proton and net-charge fluctuations. Our findings are in qualitative agreement with the recent study [1] which utilizes the net-Kaon fluctuation data in combination with information from lattice QCD. Our complimentary approach shows that also strange hadron yield ratios are described by such enhanced freeze-out conditions.