The Effects of Varying the Correlation Volume on Strangeness Production in High Energy Collisions

Preliminary results on strange particle production versus collision centrality are presented. STAR measurements from \sqrts = 200 GeV heavy-ion and \pp collisions are compared to SPS measurements. A systematic study of strange particle production is presented with the aim of establishing how the correlation volume of the produced source affects the scale of strange particle creation, including that of the multi-strange baryons. A linear increase of strangeness production with volume has been suggested by thermal models as an indication that the collision region has reached sufficient size such that small volume effects can be neglected. Analysis of preliminary results from STAR show that, using the assumption that the number of participants is linearly correlated with the volume, no such regime was obtained. This suggests that the correlation volume ''seen" by strange quarks is not merely that of the initial overlap.