Strangeness enhancement and energy dependence in heavy ion collisions

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 GeV up to 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 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. Received: 25 October 2001 / Published online: 5 July 2002