Strangeness production in Au plus Au collisions at AGS energies

Collisions of Au + Au have been studied at beam kinetic energies of 6.0, 8. 0 and 10.8 GeV/nucleon at the AGS facility at Brookhaven National Laborator y. Particles emitted from the collisions were momentum analysed and identif ied in a magnetic spectrometer. Proton rapidity distributions are compared with those expected for isotropic emission from a stopped source and it is concluded that there is a substantial amount of transparency at all three b eam energies even for the most central collisions. Strangeness production w ere studied via measurements of K, phi and <(<Lambda>)over bar> spectra. Al l three indicate a strong enhancement of strangeness production relative to pp-collisions at similar centre-of-mass energies.