Chemical and thermal freeze-out parameters from 1A to 200A GeV - art. no. 054908

The present knowledge about hadrons produced in relativistic heavy ion coll isions is compatible with chemical freeze-out happening when the energy den sity divided by the particle density reaches the value of 1 GeV. This obser vation is used to determine the energy dependence of the chemical freeze-ou t parameters T-ch and mu(B)(ch) for beam energies varying between 1 and 200 A GeV. The consequences of this energy dependence are studied for various p article ratios. Predictions for particle ratios at beam energy 40A GeV are presented. The conditions for thermal freeze-out are also determined. These correspond either to an energy density of 45 MeV/fm(3) or to a particle de nsity of 0.05/fm(3). [S0556-2813(99)03911-4].