Different Hagedorn temperatures for mesons and baryons from experimental mass spectra, compound hadrons, and combinatorial saturation

Abstract

We analyze the light-flavor particle mass spectra and show that in the region up to ~1.8GeV the Hagedorn temperature for baryons is about 30% smaller than for mesons, reflecting the fact that the number of baryon states grows more rapidly with the mass. We also show that the spectra are well reproduced in a model where hadrons are compound objects of quanta, whose available number increases with mass. The rapid growth of number of hadronic states is a combinatorial effect. We also point out that an upper limit on the excitation energy of these quanta results in a maximum number of hadron states that can be formed. According to this combinatorial saturation, no more light-flavor hadron resonances exist above a certain mass.