Strangeness enhancement from strong color fields at RHIC

Abstract

In ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions, early stage multiple scatterings may lead to an increase of the color electric field strength. Consequently, particle production - especially heavy quark (and di-quark) production - is greatly enhanced according to the Schwinger mechanism. We test this idea via the Ultra-relativistic Quantum Molecular Dynamics model (UrQMD) for Au+Au collisions at the full RHIC energy ($\sqrt{s} = 200$ AGeV). Relative to p+p collisions, a factor of 60, 20 and 7 enhancement respectively, for $\Omega$ ($sss$), $\Xi$ ($ss$), and $\Lambda$, $\Sigma$ ($s$) is predicted for a model with increased color electric field strength.