Thermalization through Hagedorn states: the importance of multiparticle collisions

Quick chemical equilibration times of hadrons within a hadron gas are explained dynamically using Hagedorn states, which drive particles into equilibrium close to the critical temperature. Within this scheme master equations are employed for the chemical equilibration of various hadronic particles such as (strange) baryons and antibaryons. A comparison of the Hagedorn model to recent lattice results is made and it is found that for both Tc = 176 MeV and Tc = 196 MeV the hadrons can reach chemical equilibrium almost immediately, well before the chemical freeze-out temperatures found in thermal fits for a hadron gas without Hagedorn states.