Local equilibrium in heavy-ion collisions: Microscopic analysis of a central cell versus infinite matter - art. no. 064906

We study the local equilibrium in the central V=125 fm(3) cell in heavy-ion collisions at energies from 10.7A GeV (AGS) to 160A GeV (SPS) calculated i n the microscopic transport mo;del. In the present paper the hadron yields and energy spectra in the cell are compared with those of infinite nuclear matter, as calculated within the same model. The agreement between the spec tra in the two systems is established for times t greater than or equal to 10 fm/c in the central cell. The cell results do not deviate noticeably fro m the infinite matter calculations with rising incident energy, in contrast to the apparent discrepancy with predictions of the statistical model (SM) of an ideal hadron gas. The entropy of this state is found to be very clos e to the maximum entropy, while hadron abundances and energy spectra differ significantly from those of the SM.