Kaon to Pion ratio in Heavy Ion Collisions

TL;DR

This paper uses the Boltzmann equation to analyze the evolution of strangeness in heavy ion collisions, explaining the horn-like structure in the $K^+/\pi^+$ ratio as a result of color degrees of freedom release.

Contribution

It introduces a Boltzmann equation approach to explain the non-monotonic $K^+/\pi^+$ ratio in heavy ion collisions, linking it to color degrees of freedom.

Findings

The $K^+/\pi^+$ ratio exhibits a horn-like structure with colliding energy.

The non-monotonic behavior is attributed to the release of color degrees of freedom.

The approach provides a theoretical explanation for experimental observations.

Abstract

The momentum integrated Boltzmann equation has been used to study the evolution of strangeness of the strongly interacting system formed after the heavy ion collisions at relativistic energies.We argue that the experimentally observed non-monotonic, horn-like structure in the variation of the $K^+/\pi^+$ with colliding energy appears due to the release of large number of colour degrees of freedom.