Multistrangeness in Heavy-Ion Collisions

Abstract

We discuss strangeness production in heavy-ion collisions in the broad energy range --- from SIS energies through AGS-SPS-RHIC and upto LHC energies. On several examples we demonstrate how the strange particle production can reveal information about the collision dynamics and about possible modifications of particle properties in medium. In particular the production of hadrons containing two and more strange quarks, like $\Xi$ and $\Omega$ baryons, or a $\phi$ meson is of interest. We conduct our discussion in the framework of the minimal statistical model, in which the total strangeness yield is fixed by the $K^+$ multiplicity. It is emphasized that in collisions with a small number of produced strange particles, the exact strangeness conservation in each collision event must be explicitly preserved.