STRANGENESS ENHANCEMENT IN P+A AND S+A INTERACTIONS AT ENERGIES NEAR 200A GEV

The systematics of strangeness enhancement is calculated using the HIJ ING and VENUS models and compared to recent data on pp, pA, and AA col lisions at CERN/SPS energies (200A GeV). The HIJING model is used to p erform a linear extrapolation from pp to AA. VENUS is used to estimate the effects of final state cascading and possible nonconventional pro duction mechanisms. This comparison shows that the large enhancement o f strangeness observed in S+Au collisions, interpreted previously as p ossible evidence for quark-gluon plasma formation, has its origins in nonequilibrium dynamics of few nucleon systems. A factor of 2 enhancem ent of Lambda(0) at midrapidity is indicated by recent pS data, where on the average one projectile nucleon interacts with only two target n ucleons. There appears to be another factor of 2 enhancement in the li ght ion reaction SS relative to pS, when on the average only two proje ctile nucleons interact with two target ones.