FINITE SIZE EFFECTS IN THE DECONFINEMENT TRANSITION

We investigate the effects of finite system size on the critical parameters for the transition from a hadron gas to a deconfined quark-gluon phase, as might be encountered in the fireball resulting from a heavy ion collision. This requires the use of a density of states which depends on the surface area and linear dimension of the system as well as its volume, together with projection of the plasma partition function on to a colour singlet. Using simple models for each phase, we find noticeable changes in the critical parameters of the deconfinement transition.