Review of Structures in the Energy Dependence of Hadronic Observables

Abstract

The energy dependence of various hadronic observables is reviewed. The study of their evolution from AGS over SPS to the highest RHIC energy reveals interesting features, which might locate a possible onset of deconfinement. These observables include transverse spectra of different particle types and their total multiplicities, as well as elliptic flow. In this context especially the observation of a maximum of the strangeness to pion ratio is of particular interest, since on one hand it has been predicted as a signal for the onset of deconfinement but on the other hand also statistical model calculations exhibit qualitatively similar structures. The sharpness of these features is however not reproduced by hadronic scenarios. The significance of these structures will be discussed in this contribution. Other observables, such as radius parameters from Bose-Einstein correlations, on the other hand do not exhibit any structure in their energy dependence.