Strangeness Enhancement in Proton-Proton Collisions at the RHIC Energy

TL;DR

The paper investigates strangeness enhancement as a signature of Quark-Gluon Plasma formation in proton-proton collisions at RHIC energy using PYTHIA 8 simulations at $\sqrt{s}=200$ GeV. It analyzes transverse momentum distributions for strange and multi-strange hadrons ($K_{s}^{+}$, $K_{s}^{-}$, $\Lambda^{0}$, $\Xi$, $\Omega$) across low- and high-multiplicity event classes and finds that strangeness yields rise with multiplicity, with stronger enhancement for multi-strange baryons. The results show a high-$p_T$ suppression pattern consistent with partonic energy loss in a dense medium, suggesting QGP-like behavior even in high-multiplicity pp systems. Overall, the work supports the notion that small systems can exhibit QGP-like strangeness production, providing insight into the hadronization and phase-transition dynamics at $\sqrt{s}=200$ GeV.

Abstract

Strangeness enhancement is considered as a potential signature for QGP phase transition. Here we claim the observation of strangeness enhancement in proton-proton (pp) collisions at RHIC energy saying the de-confinement phase is reached. The deep study of matter phase transitions and dynamics of strangeness creation has been preformed for $K_{s}^{+}(u\bar{s})$ and $K_{s}^{-}(s\bar{u})$ mesons, $Λ^{0}(uds)$ baryon and for multi-strange baryons $Ξ^{0}(uss)$, $Ξ^{-}(dss)$ and $Ω^{-}(sss)$ production. The analysis of datasets for the strange and multi-strange hadrons production is presented at $\sqrt{s} =$ 200 GeV as reported by the PYTHIA 8 event generator simulations. We preform the transverse momentum distributions of the strange and multi-strange hadrons for high and low multiplicity events. At the RHIC energy and for pp collisions, the strangeness content yield increases with the event multiplicity.

Figures (15)

• Figure 1: Feynman diagrams for production of strange quarks in the QGP.
• Figure 2: The transverse momentum distribution of PYTHIA 8 simulations for $k^{+}(u\bar{s})$ particles at $\sqrt{s}$ = 200 GeV for low multiplicity events, less than 70, in the left pannal and for low multiplicity events normalized to total number of simulated events in the right pannal.
• Figure 3: The transverse momentum distribution of PYTHIA8 simulations for $k^{-}(s\bar{u})$ particles at $\sqrt{s}$ = 200 GeV for low multiplicity events, less than 70, in the left pannal and for low multiplicity events normalized to total number of simulated events in the right pannal.
• Figure 4: The transverse momentum distribution of PYTHIA8 simulations for $\Lambda^{0}(uds)$ particles at $\sqrt{s}$ = 200 GeV for low multiplicity events, less than , in left pannal and or low multiplicity events normalized to total number of simulated events in the right pannal.
• Figure 5: The transverse momentum distribution of PYTHIA8 simulations for $\Xi^{-}(dss)$ particles at $\sqrt{s}$ = 200 GeV for low multiplicity events, less than 150, in the left pannal and for low multiplicity events normalized to total number of simulated events in the right pannal.