Light (hyper-)nuclei production at the LHC measured with ALICE

Abstract

The high center-of-mass energies delivered by the LHC during the last three years of operation led to accumulate a significant statistics of light (hyper-)nuclei in pp, p–Pb and Pb–Pb collisions. The ALICE apparatus allows for the detection of these rarely produced particles over a wide momentum range thanks to its excellent vertexing, tracking and particle identification capabilities. The last is based on the specific energy loss in the Time Projection Chamber and the velocity measurement with the Time-Of-Flight detector. The Cherenkov technique, exploited by a small acceptance detector (HMPID), has also been used for the most central Pb–Pb collisions to identify (anti-)deuterons at intermediate transverse momentum. Results on the production of stable nuclei and anti-nuclei in pp, p–Pb and Pb–Pb collisions are presented. Hypernuclei production rates in Pb–Pb are also described, together with a measurement of the hypertriton lifetime. The results are compared with the predictions from thermal and coalescence models. Moreover the results on the search for weakly-decaying light exotic states, such as the ΛΛ (H-dibaryon) and the Λ-neutron bound states are discussed.