Studying strangeness and baryon production in small systems through $\Xi-$hadron correlations using the ALICE detector

TL;DR

This paper presents measurements of $\Xi$ baryon and hadron angular correlations in proton-proton collisions at 13 TeV, comparing results with models to understand strangeness and baryon production mechanisms in small systems.

Contribution

It provides new experimental data on $\Xi$-hadron correlations and evaluates the performance of string-based and core-corona models in describing these phenomena.

Findings

Baryon production favors string junctions over diquark breaking.

PYTHIA8 models do not accurately describe the width of the $\Xi$-strangeness jet peak.

EPOS-LHC model lacks local conservation of quantum numbers.

Abstract

These proceedings summarise recent measurements of angular correlations between the $\Xi$ baryon and identified hadrons in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}=13\,\mathrm{TeV}$ using the ALICE detector. The results are compared with both string-based (PYTHIA8 with extensions) and core-corona (EPOS-LHC) models, to improve our understanding of strangeness and baryon production in small systems. The results favour baryon production through string junctions over diquark breaking, but the PYTHIA models fail at describing the relatively wide $\Xi-$strangeness jet peak, indicating stronger diffusion of strange quarks in data. On the other hand, EPOS-LHC is missing local conservation of quantum numbers, making it difficult to draw any conclusion about the core-corona model.