Chemical Equilibration at the Hagedorn Temperature

Abstract

One important question in relativistic heavy ion collisions is if hadrons, specifically anti-hyperons, are in equilibrium before thermal freezeout because strangeness enhancement has long been pointed to as a signature for Quark Gluon Plasma. Because anti-baryons have long equilibration times in the hadron gas phase it has been suggested that they are "born" into equilibrium. However, Hagedorn states, massive resonances, which are thought to appear near the critical temperature, contribute to fast chemical equilibration times for a hadron gas by providing extra degrees of freedom. Here we use master equations to describe the interplay between Hagedorn resonances, pions, and baryon anti-baryon pairs as they equilibrate over time and observe if the baryons and anti-baryons are fully equilibrated within the fireball.