Production of deuterons, tritons, $^{3}$He nuclei and their anti-nuclei in pp collisions at $\mathbf{\sqrt{{\textit s}}}$ = 0.9, 2.76 and 7 TeV

TL;DR

This paper reports measurements of light nuclei and anti-nuclei production in proton-proton collisions at multiple energies, extending previous data in both energy and transverse momentum, and analyzes their coalescence behavior and yield ratios.

Contribution

It provides new measurements of deuterons, tritons, and helium-3 nuclei and their anti-nuclei at high energies, with extended kinematic coverage and detailed analysis of coalescence parameters.

Findings

Coalescence parameters increase with transverse momentum.

Yields decrease by a factor of 1000 per additional nucleon.

Deuteron-to-proton ratio varies with charged particle multiplicity.

Abstract

Invariant differential yields of deuterons and anti-deuterons in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 0.9, 2.76 and 7 TeV and the yields of tritons, $^{3}$He nuclei and their anti-nuclei at $\sqrt{s}$ = 7 TeV have been measured with the ALICE detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The measurements cover a wide transverse momentum ($p_{\text{T}}$) range in the rapidity interval $|y|<0.5$, extending both the energy and the $p_{\text{T}}$ reach of previous measurements up to 3 GeV/$c$ for $A=2$ and 6 GeV/$c$ for $A=3$. The coalescence parameters of (anti-)deuterons and $^{3}\overline{\text{He}}$ nuclei exhibit an increasing trend with $p_{\text{T}}$ and are found to be compatible with measurements in pA collisions at low $p_{\text{T}}$ and lower energies. The integrated yields decrease by a factor of about 1000 for each increase of the mass number with one (anti-)nucleon. Furthermore, the deuteron-to-proton ratio is reported as a function of the average charged particle multiplicity at different center-of-mass energies.