Is Chemical Equilibrium achieved in Collisions of Small Systems at the SPS?

Abstract

The Statistical Model has to be formulated in the canonical ensemble with respect to strangeness conservation if the number of strange particles becomes small. However, the canonical suppression under the assumption of strangeness chemical equilibrium in the whole fireball volume was found to be not sufficient to reproduce observed yields. Two approaches have been proposed to modify the model. First, a non-equilibrium factor was introduced in canonical and grand-canonical ensembles as the additional fit parameter to account for the suppressed strange particle phase-space. Here we focus on the second method: The model is extended by correlation volumes which restrict the strangeness chemical equilibrium only to certain subvolumes of the system.