The physical content of the statistical bootstrap

Abstract

The essential results of the statistical bootstrap model are a level density linearly exponential in total energy, and an asymptotically bounded average energy per secondary. We analyse the physical basis of these results and show that they follow from much more general considerations than the assumptions of the statistical bootstrap model. A fireball, from its decay aspects, can be any hadronic system at rest (independent of its content), if it has the coordinate space volume necessary to allow a free gas description in momentum space. From the point of view of fireball composition, the essential feature leading to bootstrap behaviour is the distribution of excited states according to linear Regge trajectories. Subsequently we study under what assumptions the statistical bootstrap model can be derived from the dual resonance model, and how the inclusion of fireball formation dynamics can modify a bootstrap picture. As a result, the concept of an ultimate hadronic temperature does not remain tenable as a general feature even in a dynamical theory with a linearly exponential level density.