New insights into strange-quark hadronization measuring multiple (multi-)strange hadron production in small collision systems with ALICE

TL;DR

This paper investigates the production of strange and multi-strange hadrons in small collision systems at the LHC, revealing behaviors that challenge existing models and offering new insights into hadronization processes.

Contribution

It extends previous studies by measuring multiplicity distributions of various strange hadrons in pp collisions, introducing a novel event-by-event counting method for strangeness production.

Findings

Enhanced strange hadron production observed in high-multiplicity events.

Current QCD-inspired models fail to reproduce the measured yields.

Event-by-event strangeness counting provides new constraints on production mechanisms.

Abstract

Among the most important results from the Run-1 and Run-2 of the LHC is the observation of an enhanced production of (multi-)strange to non-strange hadron yields, gradually rising from low-multiplicity to high-multiplicity pp and p--Pb collisions, reaching values close to those measured in peripheral Pb--Pb collisions. The observed behaviour cannot be quantitatively reproduced by any of the available QCD-inspired MC generators. In this contribution an extension of this study is presented: the measurement of the ${\rm K}_{\rm S}^{0}$, $\Lambda$, $\Xi^{-}$ and $\Omega^{-}$ (together with their antiparticles) multiplicity distributions in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 5.02 TeV as a function of the charged-particle multiplicity, together with the average probability for the multiplets production, extending the study of strangeness production beyond its average. This novel method, based on counting the number of strange particles event-by-event, represents a new test bench for production mechanisms, probing events with a large imbalance between strange and non-strange content.