Constituent quarks and enhancement of multi-strange baryons in heavy-ion collisions

Heavy-ion collisions at relativistic energies aim to produce a state of matter which is governed by partonic degrees of freedom, known as Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP). In the central rapidity region, strangeness enhancement has been proposed as a potential signature of QGP. It has been observed that a quark participant scaling of the multi-strange baryon production and also a strangeness scaling of the enhancement. This confirms that the partonic degrees of freedom is playing a major role in the particle production mechanism and may therefore significantly determine the formation of QGP in heavy ion collisions