Eur. Phys. J. C 24, 589-594 (2002)
DOI: 10.1007/s10052-002-0983-1

Strangeness enhancement and energy dependence in heavy ion collisions

K. Redlich^{1, 2} and A. Tounsi<sup>3

1</sup>  Theoretical Physics Division, CERN, 1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland
²  Institute of Theoretical Physics, University of Wroclaw, 50204 Wroclaw, Poland
³  Laboratoire de Physique Théorique et Hautes Energies, Université Paris 7, 75251 Cedex 05, France

(Received: 25 October 2001 / Published online: 5 July 2002)

Abstract
The canonical statistical model analysis of strange and multistrange hadron production in central A- A relative to p- p/p- A collisions is presented over the energy range from s^1/2=8.73 GeV up to s^1/2 =130 GeV. It is shown that the relative enhancement of strange particle yields from p- p/p- A to A- A collisions substantially increases with decreasing collision energy. It is largest at s^1/2= 8.7 GeV, where the enhancement of and is of the order of 100, 20 and 3, respectively. In terms of the model these results are due to the canonical suppression of particle thermal phase space at lower energies, which increases with the strangeness content of the particle and with decreasing size of the collision fireball. The comparison of the model with existing data on the energy dependence of the kaon/pion ratio is also discussed.

© Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag 2002