Light flavor results in p-Pb collisions with ALICE

TL;DR

This paper presents comprehensive measurements of light-flavor hadron production in p-Pb collisions at 5.02 TeV, exploring particle ratios and spectra across a wide momentum range to understand particle production mechanisms and system size effects.

Contribution

It provides the first extensive set of light-flavor hadron measurements in p-Pb collisions over a broad momentum range, including resonances and multi-strange baryons, to study system size dependence.

Findings

Particle ratios vary with system size and momentum.

Resonance suppression observed in high-multiplicity events.

Multi-strange baryon yields show enhancement relative to smaller systems.

Abstract

Particle ratios provide insight into the hadrochemistry of the event and the mechanisms for particle production. In Pb-Pb collisions the relative multi-strange baryon yields exhibit an enhancement with respect to pp collisions, whereas the short-lived K$^{*0}$ resonance is suppressed in the most central events due to re-scattering of its decay daughter particles. Measurements in p-Pb allow us to investigate the development of these effects as a function of the system size. We report comprehensive results on light-flavor hadron production measured with the ALICE detector in p-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}=5.02$ TeV, covering a wide range of particle species which includes long-lived hadrons, resonances and multi-strange baryons. The measurements include the transverse momentum spectra and the ratios of spectra among different species, and extend over a very large transverse momentum region, from $\approx$100 MeV/$c$ to $\approx$20 GeV/$c$, depending on the particle species.