The universal freeze-out criterion at SPS and RHIC

We formulate a freeze-out criterion for ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions in terms of the pion escape probability from the collision region. We find that the increase in pion phase-space density from SPS to RHIC reported at this conference has a small influence on particle freeze-out because of the small pi-pi cross-section. Our treatment takes into account dynamical expansion, chemical composition and momentum of the escaping particle for particle freeze-out. It supports a freeze-out at rather low temperature - below 100 MeV - and earlier decoupling of high p_t particles.