| Production of multi-strange particles in Pb--Pb interactions at 158 (2007) | |||||||||||||
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| The first results on fully corrected ratios and production cross sections of\Omega \Gamma ,\Omega + , \Xi \Gamma and \Xi + detected by the WA97 experiment in Pb--Pb collisions are presented. 1 Introduction An enhanced production of strange particles has long been suggested as a tool to identify the establishment of a flavour equilibrated system in particle reactions [1, 2]. The equilibration times are expected to be much shorter in a Quark--Gluon Plasma than in a Hadron Gas [3, 4]. In particular, multistrange (anti-)baryons have been suggested as a useful probe of the early phases of the collision [5], since hadronic production of such particles is strongly suppressed due to high mass thresholds. An enhanced production of multistrange (anti-)baryons has already been observed in sulphur initiated reactions by the WA85 and WA94 collaborations [6, 7]. 2 The experimental setup The WA97 set-up, shown schematically in figure 1, is described in detail in ref. [8]. The target and mos... | |||||||||||||
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