Hadron-resonance gas at freeze-out: Reminder on the importance of repulsive interactions

Abstract

An influence of the repulsive interactions on matter properties is considered within the excluded volume van der Waals hadron-resonance gas model. Quantitative results are presented for matter at the chemical freeze-out in central nucleus-nucleus collisions at relativistic energies. In particular, it is shown that repulsive interactions connected to non-zero size of created particles lead to a significant decrease of collision energy at which the net-baryon density has a maximum. A position of the transition point from baryon to meson dominated matter depends on the difference between baryon and meson hard-core radiuses.