Baryon recoil and the fragmentation regions in ultra-relativistic nuclear collisions

The maximum baryon and energy densities reached in the fragmentation regions of nuclear collisions are estimated with a new hydrodynamical model. Unlike previous models where recoil is included as a source term for the baryon current, in our model the baryon current is strictly conserved. The parameters of the model are furthermore adjusted to take into account the large baryon rapidity shifts observed recently in p + A → p + X. The implications for the production of high baryon density quark-gluon plasmas are discussed.