Thermal Hadron Production by QCD Hawking Radiation

Abstract

The QCD counterpart of Hawking radiation from black holes leads to thermal hadron production in high energy collisions, from $e^+e^-$ annihilation to heavy ion interactions. This hadronic radiation is formed by tunnelling through the event horizon of colour confinement and is emitted at a universal temperature $T_H \simeq (\sigma /2 \pi)^{1/2}$, where $\sigma$ denotes the string tension. Since the event horizon does not allow information transfer, the radiation is thermal ``at birth''.