Strangelets formation in high energy heavy-ion collisions

TL;DR

This paper investigates the phase diagram of strange quark matter at finite temperature, exploring conditions for strangelet formation in high-energy heavy-ion collisions through theoretical models and dynamical analysis.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed study of the phase diagram and identifies key parameters influencing strangelet formation in relativistic nuclear collisions.

Findings

Strangeness fraction and interaction parameters strongly affect strangelet formation.

Large initial entropy per baryon increases the probability of strangelet formation.

Certain parameter thresholds prevent strangelet formation, leading to complete hadronization.

Abstract

The properties of phase diagram of strange quark matter in equilibrium with hadronic matter at finite temperature are studied, where the quark phase and hadron phase are treated by baryon density-dependent quark mass model and hadron resonance gas model with hard core repulsion factor, respectively. The thermodynamic conditions for the formation of metastable strange quark droplets ("strangelets") in relativistic nuclear collisions are discussed. We obtained a rich structure of the phase diagram at finite temperature, and study the dynamical trajectories of an expanding strange fireball. Our results indicate that the strangeness fraction fs, perturbation parameter C, and confinement parameter D have strong influence on the properties of phase diagram and the formation of strangelets. Consider the isentropic expansion process, we found that the initial entropy per baryon is less than or equal to 5, which gives a large probability for the formation of strangelets. Furthermore, a sufficiently large strangeness fraction fs and one-gluon-exchange interaction and sufficiently small confinement interaction create possibilities for the formation of strangelets. On the contrary, the fireball will always complete the hadronization process when fs=0 or C>=0 or D^{1/2}>=170 MeV.