uc l - th / 9 40 30 10 v 1 1 0 M ar 1 99 4 HD – TVP – 94 – 6 QUARK – GLUON – PLASMA FORMATION AT SPS ENERGIES ? 1

By colliding ultrarelativistic ions, one achieves presently energy densities close to the critical value, concerning the formation of a quark-gluon-plasma. This indicates the importance of fluctuations and the necessity to go beyond the investigation of average events. Therefore, we introduce a percolation approach to model the final stage (τ > 1 fm/c) of ion-ion collisions, the initial stage being treated by well-established methods, based on strings and Pomerons. The percolation approach amounts to finding high density domains, and treating them as quark-matter droplets. In this way, we have a realistic, microscopic, and Monte–Carlo based model which allows for the formation of quark matter. We find that even at SPS energies large quark-matter droplets are formed – at a low rate though. In other words: large quark-matter droplets are formed due to geometrical fluctuation, but not in the average event.