Antimatter production in proton-proton and heavy-ion collisions at ultrarelativistic energies

TL;DR

This paper investigates how matter-antimatter symmetry in particle production approaches equality at high energies in proton-proton and heavy-ion collisions, including predictions for complex antimatter forms.

Contribution

It explicitly quantifies the energy dependence of matter/antimatter symmetry in high-energy collisions and provides expectations for antimatter production beyond simple antiparticles.

Findings

Matter and antimatter become nearly equally abundant at high energies

Energy dependence of matter/antimatter symmetry is explicitly characterized

Predictions made for antimatter complex forms like antihypernuclei

Abstract

One of the striking features of particle production at high beam energies is the near equal abundance of matter and antimatter in the central rapidity region. In this paper we study how this symmetry is reached as the beam energy is increased. In particular, we quantify explicitly the energy dependence of the approach to matter/antimatter symmetry in proton-proton and in heavy-ion collisions. Expectations are presented also for the production of more complex forms of antimatter like antihypernuclei.