Strangeness production in hadronic and quark matter: A quantitative differentiation

We consider the production of strange particles in relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions employing the hadron gas (HG) and quark-gluon plasma (QGP) formalism. We locate the region in the phase diagram where μs=0 in the hadron gas phase and define quantitatively the effective upper limit of the HG region. Plotting the strange particle ratios in terms of the temperature and quark chemical potential for both HG and QGP formalisms, we define quantitatively the regions of complete separation of the two processes. We compare the CERN 32S-induced experiments NA36 and WA85 to both formalisms and discuss their differences. For the future Pb beam experiments, predictions are made in the QGP phase for the magnitude of strange (anti)particle ratios in the baryon-free central region at the CERN LHC and the baryon-rich midrapidity at the CERN SPS and BNL RHIC