Baryon number projection for an interacting hadron gas

Calculations of hadronic matter usually enforce conservation of the average baryon number density using the grand canonical ensemble. We have performed calculations for an interacting system in the canonical ensemble with fixed baryon number Nb, as appropriate for a finite fireball of the type produced in ultra relativistic heavy ion collisions. These results are compared with those obtained from calculations in the grand canonical ensemble. For an interacting nucleon gas the two ensembles yield free energies which differ by approximately 5%. (orig.)