Measurements of charged pion and kaon production in central Pb+Pb collisions at 40, 80 and 158 AGeV are presented. These are compared with data at lower and higher energies as well as with results from p+p interactions. The mean pion multiplicity per wounded nucleon increases approximately linearly with s_NN^1/4 with a change of slope starting in the region 15-40 AGeV. The change from pion suppression with respect to p+p interactions, as observed at low collision energies, to pion enhancement at high energies occurs at about 40 AGeV. A non-monotonic energy dependence of the ratio of K^+ to pi^+ yields is observed, with a maximum close to 40 AGeV and an indication of a nearly constant value at higher energies.The measured dependences may be related to an increase of the entropy production and a decrease of the strangeness to entropy ratio in central Pb+Pb collisions in the low SPS energy range, which is consistent with the hypothesis that a transient state of deconfined matter is created above these energies. Other interpretations of the data are also discussed.
The production of Λ,\(\bar \Lambda\) andKs0 has been studied in 200 GeV/nucleonp+S and S+S collisions in the streamer chamber of the NA35 experiment at the CERN SPS. Significant enhancement of the multiplicities of all observed strange particles relative to negative hadrons was observed in central S+S collisions, as compared top+p andp+S collisions. The latter collisions show no overall (relative) strangeness enhancement overp+p, but the rapidity distributions and hadron multiplicities indicate some secondary cascading production of Λ particles in thep+S andp+Au collisions. The Λ polarization in central S+S collisions was found to be compatible with zero up topT=2 GeV/c.
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