Matter-Antimatter Asymmetry in the Large Hadron Collider

TL;DR

This paper systematically studies matter-antimatter ratios in nuclear collisions over three decades, showing that at LHC energies, the asymmetry nearly vanishes, and the hadron resonance gas model accurately reproduces experimental data.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive HRG model analysis of antiparticle-to-particle ratios across various collision energies, highlighting the near-symmetry at LHC.

Findings

Ratios increase from ~0% at AGS to ~100% at LHC.

HRG model reproduces experimental ratios well.

Matter-antimatter asymmetry nearly vanishes at LHC.

Abstract

The matter-antimatter asymmetry is one of the greatest challenges in the modern physics. The universe including this paper and even the reader him(her)self seems to be built up of ordinary matter only. Theoretically, the well-known Sakharov's conditions remain the solid framework explaining the circumstances that matter became dominant against the antimatter while the universe cools down and/or expands. On the other hand, the standard model for elementary particles apparently prevents at least two conditions out of them. In this work, we introduce a systematic study of the antiparticle-to-particle ratios measured in various $NN$ and $AA$ collisions over the last three decades. It is obvious that the available experimental facilities turn to be able to perform nuclear collisions, in which the matter-antimatter asymmetry raises from $\sim 0%$ at AGS to $\sim 100%$ at LHC. Assuming that the final state of hadronization in the nuclear collisions takes place along the freezeout line, which is defined by a constant entropy density, various antiparticle-to-particle ratios are studied in framework of the hadron resonance gas (HRG) model. Implementing modified phase space and distribution function in the grand-canonical ensemble and taking into account the experimental acceptance, the ratios of antiparticle-to-particle over the whole range of center-of-mass-energies are very well reproduced by the HRG model. Furthermore, the antiproton-to-proton ratios measured by ALICE in $pp$ collisions is also very well described by the HRG model. It is likely to conclude that the LHC heavy-ion program will produce the same particle ratios as the $pp$ program implying the dynamics and evolution of the system would not depend on the initial conditions. The ratios of bosons and baryons get very close to unity indicating that the matter-antimatter asymmetry nearly vanishes at LHC.