φ-Meson Production as a Probe of the Quark-Gluon Plasma

Abstract

The formation of the quark-gluon plasma in relativistic nuclear collisions may be determined by enhanced production of $\phi$ mesons. This enhancement would result from the absence of the Okubo-Zweig-Iizuka suppression which inhibits $\phi$ production in ordinary $p-p$ and $\pi -p$ collisions, and from a large abundance of strange quarks in the plasma. The $\phi$ will not rescatter significantly in the subsequent expanding hadronic phase and would thereby retain information on the conditions of the hot plasma.