Type: Article
Publication Date: 1994-09-01
Citations: 74
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevc.50.1675
We are analyzing the hydrodynamics of 200A GeV S+S collisions using a new approach which tries to quantify the uncertainties arising from the specific implementation of the hydrodynamical model. Based on a previous phenomenological analysis we use the global hydrodynamics model to show that the amount of initial flow, or initial energy density, cannot be determined from the hadronic momentum spectra. We additionally find that almost always a sizable transverse flow develops, which causes the system to freeze out, thereby limiting the flow velocity in itself. This freeze-out dominance in turn makes a distinction between a plasma and a hadron resonance gas equation of state very difficult, whereas a pure pion gas can easily be ruled out from present data. To complete the picture we also analyze particle multiplicity data, which suggest that chemical equilibrium is not reached with respect to the strange particles. However, the overpopulation of pions seems to be at most moderate, with a pion chemical potential far away from the Bose divergence.