Searching for onset of deconfinement via hypernuclei and baryon-strangeness correlations

Abstract

We argue that the ratio $S_3 =\mathrm{^3_ΛH} / (\mathrm{^3He} \times \fracΛ{p})$ is a good representation of the local correlation between baryon number and strangeness, and therefore is a valuable tool to probe the nature of the dense matter created in high energy heavy-ion collision: quark gluon plasma or hadron gas. A multiphase transport model (AMPT) plus a dynamical coalescence model is used to elucidate our arguments. We find that AMPT with string melting predicts an increase of $S_3$ with increasing beam energy, and is consistent with experimental data, while AMPT with only hadronic scattering results in a low $S_3$ throughout the energy range from AGS to RHIC, and fails to describe the experimental data.

add several sentences in paragraph 2 and 3, one more paragraph (4) and one more reference (11) to address the referee's queries. accepted version