High pt strangeness enhancement

Enhanced strangeness production in nuclear collisions has been proposed as a possible signature of quark-gluon plasma formation: in particular, the φ production might increase. We find, however, that the enhancement of the φ (po+ω) ratio by a factor of ca. 3 observed by NA38 (for pperpendicularto ≥ 1.1 GeV) can be explained by the smaller size of the φ absorption cross section and that the enhancement of the φ to continuum ratio could be an artifact of the pt cutoff applied to the data. (orig.)