Universal strangeness production in hadronic and nuclear collisions

Abstract

We show that strangeness suppression in hadronic and nuclear collisions is fully determined by the initial energy density of the collision. The suppression factor [Formula: see text], with [Formula: see text] denoting the collision energy, can be expressed as a universal function of the initial energy density [Formula: see text], and the resulting pattern is in excellent agreement with data from [Formula: see text]–[Formula: see text], [Formula: see text]–Pb, Cu–Cu, Au–Au and Pb–Pb data over a wide range of energies and for different centralities.