# Exploring Strangeness Enhancement and Particle Production in Small Collision Systems with EPOS4 at $\sqrt{s_\rm{NN}}$ = 5.02 TeV

## TL;DR

This paper uses the EPOS4 event generator to study particle production and strangeness enhancement in small collision systems at 5.02 TeV, revealing qualitative agreement with experimental trends and highlighting areas for model improvement.

## Contribution

It demonstrates that EPOS4 with a microcanonical core hadronization approach qualitatively reproduces key features of small system collisions, advancing modeling of particle production mechanisms.

## Key findings

- EPOS4 reproduces qualitative trends in particle yields and spectra.
- Hierarchical strangeness enhancement observed in simulations.
- Discrepancies remain in quantitative descriptions of observables.

## Abstract

The observation of collectivity and strangeness enhancement in small collision systems, such as proton-proton (pp) and proton-lead (p-Pb) collisions, challenges traditional assumptions regarding thermalization and particle production mechanisms. In this study, we investigate particle yields and transverse momentum distributions in pp and p-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_\rm{NN}}$ = 5.02 TeV using the EPOS4 event generator, which employs a core-corona framework to model particle production across a variety of system sizes. EPOS4 successfully reproduces many qualitative trends observed in experimental data, including the hardening of $p_{\rm{T}}$-spectra with multiplicity, the hierarchical strangeness enhancement in strange-to-pion ratios, and characteristic modifications of particle yield ratios as a function of $p_{\rm{T}}$ and multiplicity. The microcanonical approach to core hadronization used in EPOS4 seems to provide a more realistic description of small systems compared to grand-canonical treatments. Nonetheless, quantitative discrepancies still persist in describing several physical observables. Future model refinements, including improved core-corona balancing, differential freeze-out conditions for multi-strange hadrons, and incorporation of finite strangeness correlation volumes, may be taken into account for enhancing EPOS4's predictive power and deepening our understanding of the complex dynamics governing the particle production in high-energy collisions.