Strangeness and Antibaryon Production in Heavy-Ion Collisions

Abstract

We review the experimental results on strangeness and antibaryon production in heavy-ion collisions at the AGS and SPS. We argue that the observed enhancement in kaon production at the AGS is consistent with hadronic description, while the multistrange baryon and antibaryon results at the SPS may need physics beyond hadronic nature. We call the need for measurements of low energy antilambda-proton annihilation cross-section in the modeling of antilambda to antiproton ratio; large value of this ratio is observed in central heavy-ion collisions at the AGS and SPS. We speculate the importance of an excitation function measurement of the ratio.