MATTER BELOW THE CRITICAL TEMPERATURE

Abstract

Form of matter created in high-energy heavy ion collisions is pertinent to color deconfinement. We calculate time dependences of number densities of pions, rhos, kaons, vector kaons, free quarks and antiquarks. Due to medium screening which leads to constant confinement at large distances, meson-meson reactions [Formula: see text] in hadronic matter below the critical temperature Tc produce an appreciable amount of quarks and antiquarks freely moving in hadronic matter and establish a new mechanism for deconfinement of quarks and antiquarks in hadronic matter. We therefore arrive at a new form of matter below Tc: hadrons plus free quarks and antiquarks.