Particle rapidity density and collective phenomena in heavy ion collisions

Abstract

We analyse recent results on charged particle pseudo-rapidity densities from RHIC in the framework of the Dual String Model, in particular when including string fusion. The model, in a simple way, agrees with all the existing data and is consistent with the presence of the percolation transition to the Quark-Gluon Plasma already at the CERN-SPS. It leads to strict saturation of the particle (pseudo-)rapidity density, normalised to the number of participant nucleons, as that number increases. A comparison with recent WA98 data is presented.