Formation of hadrons at chemical freeze-out

Abstract

We use a kinetic condition to predict the chemical freeze-out parameters for hadronic species produced in heavy ion collisions. The resulting freeze-out lines for different hadrons lie close to one another in the temperature and baryochemical potential plane, defining a universal, narrow region. The chemical freeze-out is driven by the localization of hadrons due to the chiral symmetry breaking and confining aspects of the QCD transition.

Comments: 15 pages, 6 figures