Strange hadron production in heavy ion collisions from SPS to RHIC

Understand

Strange particles have been a very important observable in the search for a deconfined state of strongly interacting matter, the quark-gluon plasma (QGP), which is expected to be formed in ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions.

• We review the main experimental observations made at the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) at CERN, Geneva, and at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL).
• The large amount of recently collected data allows for a comprehensive study of strangeness production as a function of energy and system size.
• We review results on yields, transverse mass and rapidity spectra, as well as elliptic flow.