Covariant description of kinetic freeze-out through a finite time-like layer

Abstract

The freeze-out (FO) problem is addressed for a covariant FO probability and a finite FO layer with a time-like normal vector continuing the line of studies introduced in Molnár et al (2006 Phys. Rev. C 74 024907). The resulting post-FO momentum distribution functions are presented and discussed. We show that in general the post-FO distributions are non-thermal and asymmetric distributions even for time-like FO situations.