Baryon Fluctuations in High Energy Nuclear Collisions

We propose that dramatic changes in the variances and covariance of protons and antiprotons can result if baryons approach chemical equilibrium in nuclear collisions at RHIC. To explore how equilibration alters these fluctuations, we formulate both equilibrium and nonequilibrium hadrochemical descriptions of baryon evolution. Contributions to fluctuations from impact parameter averaging and finite acceptance in nuclear collisions are numerically simulated.