Measuring system-size and event-topology dependence of (multi-)strangeness production

TL;DR

This paper investigates how system size and event topology influence (multi-)strangeness production in high-energy collisions, comparing experimental results with theoretical models to understand underlying mechanisms across different collision systems.

Contribution

It provides new measurements of (multi-)strange hadron production in Pb--Pb collisions at LHC energies and compares them with pp collision data and theoretical models to explore strangeness production mechanisms.

Findings

Strangeness production shows system-size dependence.

Angular correlations reveal differences between models and data.

Strangeness production linked to hard processes and underlying event.

Abstract

Measurements of light-flavour particle production in small collision systems at the LHC energies have shown the onset of features that resemble what is typically observed in nucleus-nucleus collisions. New results on the (multi-)strange hadron production in Pb--Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}$=5.02 and 5.36 TeV will be presented. These results are discussed in the context of recent measurements of light-flavour hadron production in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 0.9 and 13.6 TeV collected by the ALICE experiment in Run 3 of the LHC. In order to understand the strangeness production mechanism, angular correlation between multi-strange and associated identified hadrons are measured and compared with predictions from the string-breaking model PYTHIA8, the cluster hadronisation model HERWIG7, and the core-corona model EPOS-LHC. In addition, the connection of strange hadron production to hard scattering processes and to the underlying event is studied, using di-hadron correlations triggered with the highest-$p_{\mathrm{T}}$ hadron in the event.