Multi-differential studies to explore strangeness enhancement in pp with ALICE at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper investigates the origins of strangeness enhancement in proton-proton collisions at the LHC by analyzing the contributions of soft and hard processes and the effective energy available, revealing its relation to event multiplicity.

Contribution

It introduces new multi-differential analyses that separate soft and hard process contributions and estimate effective energy, advancing understanding of strangeness production mechanisms in pp collisions.

Findings

Strangeness production is linked to the growth of the underlying event.

Final state multiplicity influences strangeness enhancement.

Hard processes like jets contribute less to strangeness than the underlying event.

Abstract

The study of energy and multiplicity dependence of strange hadron production in proton-proton collisions provides a powerful tool to understand similarities and differences between small and large collision systems. In order to better understand the origin of strangeness enhancement in pp new multi-differential analyses have been performed. The first separates the contribution of soft and hard processes, such as jets, to strange hadron production through two-particle correlation techniques. The second exploits the concept of the effective energy available for particle production in the event, which is estimated by an anti-correlation with the energy deposited in ALICE's Zero Degree Calorimeters. The results indicate that strangeness production emerges from the growth of the underlying event and confirm it is related to the final state multiplicity.