Chemical freeze-out and the QCD phase transition temperature

We argue that hadron multiplicities in central high energy nucleus-nucleus collisions are established very close to the phase boundary between hadronic and quark matter. This occurs in multi-particle collisions whose importance is strongly enhanced due to the high particle density in the phase transition region. As a consequence of the rapid fall-off of the multi-particle scattering rates the experimentally determined chemical freeze-out temperature is a good measure of the phase transition temperature. (orig.)SIGLEAvailable from TIB Hannover: RO 801(03-34) / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekDEGerman