On local and global equilibrium in heavy ion collisions

Abstract.

The thermal model is commonly used in two different ways for the description of hadron production in ultra-relativistic heavy ion collision. One is the application of the thermal model to $4\pi$ integrated data and the other is the thermal description of central dN/dy ratios. While the first method implicitly assumes global equilibrium the other scenario assumes Bjorken scaling within the investigated rapidity range. Both assumptions are only approximations for real physical collision systems. We study the impact of both approximations for the extraction of thermal parameters on the exemplary case of S+S collisions at SPS energies. The particle distributions are modeled by a hydrodynamical description of the relevant collision system.