Freeze-out of strange hadrons at RHIC

Abstract

The production and freeze-out conditions of strange particles, produced in Au+Au collisions at RHIC energies, are studied within microscopic transport model. The system of final particles can be represented as a core, containing the particles which are still interacting with each other, and a halo, in which the particles have already decoupled from the system. In microscopic calculations hadrons are continuously emitted from the whole reaction volume. At RHIC, however, significant fractions of both mesons and baryons are emitted from the surface region within the first two fm/c. Different species decouple at different times. Strange mesons (kaons and $\phi$) are frozen at earlier times and, therefore, can probe earlier stages of the reaction.