Anti- and Hyper-Nuclei Production at the LHC with ALICE

Abstract

At the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) a significant production of (anti-)(hyper-)nuclei is observed in proton-proton (pp), proton-lead (p-Pb) and lead-lead (Pb-Pb) collisions. The measurement of the production yields of light (anti-)nuclei is extremely important to provide insight into the production mechanisms of nuclear matter, which is still an open question in high energy physics. The outstanding particle identification (PID) capabilities of the ALICE detectors allow the identification of rarely produced particles such as deuterons, 3 He and their antiparticles. From the production spectra measured for light (anti-)nuclei with ALICE, the key observables of the production mechanisms (antimatter/matter ratio, coalescence parameter, nuclei/protons ratio) are computed and compared with the available theoretical models. Another open question is the determination of the hypertriton lifetime: published experimental values show a lifetime shorter than the expected one, which should be close to that of the free Λ hyperon. Thanks to the high-resolution track reconstruction capabilities of the ALICE experiment, it has been possible to determine the hypertriton lifetime at the highest Pb-Pb collisions energy with the highest precision ever reached.

Keywords

• nuclei
• antinuclei
• hypertriton lifetime