THE SPECIFIC-HEAT OF HADRONIC MATTER AT LARGE BARYON NUMBER DENSITIES

We have calculated the specific heat per unit volume for a relativistic hadron gas in the grand canonical ensemble using the experimental hadron spectrum as input. In the physical situation of a conserved baryon number density, structure in this quantity is apparent in the baryon sector at a temperature of approximately 140 MeV. This temperature is notably insensitive to both the baryon number density and the strength of the hadron-hadron interactions. We find that this structure occurs only in the baryon sector and is due to the change in the level density present in the experimental mass spectrum. As the baryon number density is increased to 5-10 times normal nuclear density, this structure also becomes gradually visible in the specific heat per unit volume for the hadron gas as a whole, and may provide a "signature" for the change of the hadron gas from baryon-to meson-dominated. © 1990.