Strangeness production in nuclear collisions — recent results from experiment NA49 Original Research Article

Data on charged and neutral kaon and on φ(1020) production in p+p, p+Pb and Pb+Pb collisions at 158 GeV/c·A beam momentum are presented. Strangeness is found to increase smoothly with centrality and Feynman-x in p+Pb and Pb+Pb collisions as compared to p+p interactions. The 〈K+〉/〈π+〉 ratio shows no significant change with CM-energy after the steep rise above threshold.