φ-Meson Production as a Probe of the Quark-Gluon Plasma

The formation of the quark-gluon plasma in relativistic nuclear collisions may be determined by enhanced production of mesons. This enhancement would result from the absence of the Okubo-Zweig-Iizuka suppression which inhibits production in ordinary p-p and -p collisions, and from a large abundance of strange quarks in the plasma. The will not rescatter significantly in the subsequent expanding hadronic phase and would thereby retain information on the conditions of the hot plasma.