Chemical properties of super-hadronic matter created in relativistic heavy ion collisions

Abstract

Preliminary charge balance functions from the STAR Collaboration at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) are compared to a model where quarks are produced in two waves. If a chemically equilibrated quark-gluon plasma (QGP) is created the strength and diffusive spread of the first wave should be governed by the chemical composition of the QGP, while the second wave should be determined by the increased number of quarks required to make the observed final-state hadrons. A simple model parameterizes the chemistry of the super-hadronic matter and the two correlation lengths for the two waves. Calculations are compared to preliminary data from the STAR Collaboration. The chemistry of the super-hadronic matter appears to be within 20\% of expectations from lattice gauge theory.