The correlation between baryon number and strangeness elucidates the nature of strongly interacting matter, such as that formed transiently in high-energy nuclear collisions. This diagnostic can be extracted theoretically from lattice QCD calculations and experimentally from event-by-event fluctuations. The analysis of present lattice results above the critical temperature severely limits the presence of $q\overline{q}$ bound states, thus supporting a picture of independent (quasi)quarks.

• Received 23 May 2005

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.95.182301