Collision Energy Dependence of Particle Ratios and Freeze-out Parameters in Ultra Relativistic Nucleus Nucleus Collisions

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the energy dependence of particle ratios and freeze-out parameters in ultra-relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions using a van der Waals hadron resonance gas model, highlighting the role of strangeness imbalance.

Contribution

It introduces a VDW-HRG model incorporating interactions to extract freeze-out parameters across energies, explaining particle ratios and the horn-like structures in strange particle ratios.

Findings

The model successfully fits antibaryon/baryon ratios across energies.

Strangeness imbalance is necessary to explain horn-like structures.

Correlation between ar{p}/p and K^-/K^+ ratios is analyzed.

Abstract

This work investigates the thermo-chemical freeze-out condition of the multi-component hot and dense hadron resonance gas (HRG) formed in the ultra-relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions (URNNC). The van der Waals (VDW) type model used in the present analysis incorporates the repulsive as well as attractive interactions among the hadrons. The baryons (antibaryons) are treated as incompressible objects. Using this theoretical approach the values of the model freeze-out parameters of the system are extracted over a wide range of collision energy by analyzing experimental data on like-mass antibaryon to baryon ratios. The same set of parameters is found to explain the energy dependence of several other particle ratios quite satisfactorily. We find that the horn-like structures seen in the ratios of strange particles to pions as a function of the collision energy cannot be explained by the VDW-HRG model alone without considering the strangeness imbalance effect in the system. We have compared our freeze-out line with those obtained earlier. The correlation between the $\bar{p}/p$ and $K^-/K^+$ ratios is also examined.