Search

The Hidden Local Symmetry Lagrangian is used to study the interactions of phi mesons with other pseudoscalar and vector mesons in a hadronic gas at finite temperature. We have found a significantly small phi mean free path (less than 2.4 fm at T > 170 MeV) due to large collision rates with rho mesons, kaons and predominantly K* in spite of their heavy mass. This implies that phi mesons produced after hadronization in relativistic heavy ion collisions will not leave the hadronic system without scattering. The effect of these interactions on the time evolution of the phi density in the expanding hadronic fireball is investigated.

We calculate the $\phi$ meson collision rate and mean free path in a hot hadronic gas. The Hidden Local Symmetry model is used to take into account interactions of $\phi$ mesons with pseudoscalar ($\pi$, $K$) and vector mesons ($\rho$, $\omega$, $K^*$, $\phi$). In contrast to previous calculations we find a significantly small mean free path (around 1~;fm at T=200MeV). This implies that $\phi$ mesons produced after hadronization in relativistic heavy ion collisions will not leave the collision region without scattering. The consequences of these findings to the analysis of $\phi$ yields are discussed.