Freeze-out in the E802 and NA35 experiments

We compare the thermodynamic conditions at freeze-out obtained from the results of E802 and NA35 Collaborations using an equilibrium thermodynamic model of hadron production. This model includes hadron interactions in a mean field approximation, hadron resonance decays and the effects of finite system size. The large discrepancies in freeze-out temperatures and densities may be qualitatively understood in terms of a simple kinetic model, and are the result of the very different meson to baryon ratios in the two experiments. This arises from the different incident energies, and thus initial compositions of the hadron gas, in the two experiments. (orig.)