Strange and multi-strange particle production at the LHC energies with ALICE

TL;DR

This paper reports on the measurement of strange and multi-strange particle production at the LHC using ALICE, exploring chemical equilibration, bulk properties, and different kinematic regimes in heavy-ion and proton-proton collisions.

Contribution

It presents new measurements of strange particle production at unprecedented energies and compares them to theoretical models, highlighting ALICE's capabilities.

Findings

Strangeness production helps investigate chemical equilibration.

Measurements span from collective phenomena to pQCD-dominated regions.

ALICE data are compared with models to understand particle production mechanisms.

Abstract

Strange quark and particle production is studied at the LHC with unprecedented high beam energies in both heavy-ion and proton-proton collisions: on the one hand, strangeness is used for investigating chemical equilibration and bulk properties; on the other hand, strange particles contribute to probe different kinematical domains, from the one where collective phenomena are at play up to the region dominated by pQCD-calculable processes. We highlight the suitability of the ALICE experiment for this topic, presenting our latest measurements and comparing them to models.