Probing collision dynamics at RHIC

Abstract

Measurements of a variety of hadron species in pp and Au+Au collisions at 200 GeV are presented and studied within the framework of chemical and local kinetic equilibrium models. The extracted chemical and final kinetic freeze-out temperatures and collective flow velocities are discussed as function of centrality. The results suggest that Au+Au collisions of various centralities at RHIC always evolve toward the same temperature at chemical freeze-out, followed by cooling and expansion toward kinetic freeze-out.