The fireball paradigm

Abstract

In this chapter we show how multihadron production can be related to thermodynamical considerations. Following a general introduction to the topic, we discuss the statistical hadronization model, in which each species is produced according to its phase space weight, and show that this leads to a universal hadronization temperature found in e+ e− annihilation as well as in hadron-hadron and nucleus-nucleus collisions. In the final part we address deviations from a universal statistical hadronization description.