Correlating Strangeness Enhancement and J/psi Suppression in Heavy Ion Collisions at sqrt(s)_NN = 17.2 GeV

Abstract

It is shown that the strangeness enhancement and the J/psi anomalous suppression patterns observed in heavy ion collisions at top SPS energy, sqrt(s)_NN = 17.2 GeV, exhibit an interesting correlation if studied as a function of the transverse size of the interaction region. The onset of both phenomena seems to occur when the size exceeds \approx 4 fm. Strangeness enhancement is defined in terms of the strangeness undersaturation factor gamma_S and J/psi anomalous suppression in terms of the deviation from the absorption expected in a purely hadronic scenario.

Comments: 11 pages, 4 figures, elsart, minor corrections added