(Anti-)(hyper-)nuclei production in Pb-Pb collisions with ALICE at the Large Hadron Collider

TL;DR

This paper reports on the production of (hyper-)nuclei in Pb-Pb collisions at the LHC, analyzing their yields, dependence on system size, and hypertriton lifetime, providing insights into nuclear matter under extreme conditions.

Contribution

It presents the most recent measurements of (hyper-)nuclei production and hypertriton lifetime at the LHC, comparing experimental results with theoretical models and smaller collision systems.

Findings

Production yields increase with system size.

Hypertriton lifetime measured with high precision.

Results agree with coalescence and statistical models.

Abstract

In ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions a great variety of (anti-)(hyper-)nuclei are produced, namely deuteron, triton, $^3$He, $^4$He, hypertriton ($^3_{\Lambda}$H) and their antiparticles. The ALICE experiment is the most suited to investigate the production of (hyper-)nuclei at the LHC, thanks to an excellent particle identification and low-material budget detectors. Recent results on (hyper-)nuclei production as a function of transverse momentum ($p_{\rm{T}}$) and charged particle multiplicity (d$N_{\rm{ch}}$/d$\eta$) in Pb-Pb collisions are presented. The evolution of the production yields with the system size is also shown, via comparison to the results obtained in small collision systems, like pp and p-Pb. The results on the production of (hyper-)nuclei are also compared with the predictions based on a naive coalescence approach and the statistical hadronization models Furthermore, the latest and currently most precise measurement of the hypertriton lifetime is presented. It is compared with results obtained by different experimental techniques and with theoretical predictions.