Canonical description of strangeness enhancement from p–A to Pb–Pb collisions

Abstract We consider the production of strange particles in Pb–Pb and p–A collisions at the SPS energy reported by the WA97 experiment. We show that the observed enhancement of strange baryon and antibaryon yields in Pb–Pb collisions relative to p–Be and p–Pb can be explained in terms of the statistical model formulated in the canonical ensemble with respect to strangeness conservation. The importance and the role of strangeness under saturation is also discussed.