the probability of this to occur, using homogeneous nucleation theory, to be on the order of once every 100 to 1000 central collisions of large nuclei. Our estimate was based on the probability that thermal fluctuations in a homogeneous superheated hadronic gas would produce a plasma droplet, and that this droplet was large enough to overcome its surface free energy to grow. In this paper we consider another source of plasma droplet production which is essentially one of nonthermal origin. Specifically, we estimate the probability that a collision occurs between two highly energetic incoming nucleons, one from the projectile and one from the target, that this collision would have produced many pions if it had occurred in vacuum, but because it occurs in the hot and dense medium its collision products are quark and gluon fields which make a small droplet of plasma. Although there is a large uncertainty in our estimates, we find that this inhomogeneous nucleation of plasma may be more probable than homogeneous nucleation by one to two orders of magnitude.

In this paper we also consider the problem of observation of the effects of nucleation of plasma in rare events. We are guided by observations of 