Extreme States of Nuclear Matter: 1980

Abstract

The theory of hot nuclear fireballs consisting of all possible finite-size hadronic constituents in chemical and thermal equilibrium is presented. As a complement of this hadronic gas phase characterized by maximal temperature and energy density, the quark bag description of the hadronic fireball is considered. Preliminary calculations of temperatures and mean transverse momenta of particles emitted in high multiplicity relativistic nuclear collisions together with some considerations on the observability of quark matter are offered.