A. Mekjian 2007 EPL 80 22002 doi:10.1209/0295-5075/80/22002
A. Mekjian
Show affiliationsA fundamental symmetry of nuclear and particle physics is isospin whose third component is the Gell-Mann/Nishijima expression IZ=Q-(B+S)/2. The role of isospin symmetry in relativistic heavy-ion collisions is studied. An isospin IZ, strangeness S correlation is shown to be a direct and simple measure of flavor correlations, vanishing in a Qg phase of uncorrelated flavors in both symmetric N=Z and asymmetric N≠Z systems. By contrast, in a hadron phase, a IZ/S correlation exists as long as the electrostatic charge chemical potential μQ≠0 as in N≠Z asymmetric systems. A parallel is drawn with a Zeeman effect which breaks a spin degeneracy.
25.75.Gz Particle correlations and fluctuations
25.75.Nq Quark deconfinement, quark–gluon plasma production, and phase transitions
Issue 2 (October 2007)
Received 3 July 2007, accepted for publication 3 September 2007
Published 28 September 2007
A. Mekjian 2007 EPL 80 22002
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