Exploring the hadronic phase of relativistic heavy-ion collisions with resonances in ALICE

Abstract

Hadronic resonances, having short lifetimes, are useful for studying the hadrongas phase that characterizes the late-stage evolution of high-energy nuclear collisions. Indeed, regeneration and rescattering processes occurring in the hadron gas modify the measured yields of hadronic resonances and can be studied by measuring resonance yields as a function of system size and comparing them to model predictions with and without hadronic interactions. Measurements of the differential yields of resonances with different lifetime, mass, quark content, and quantum numbers help in understanding particle production mechanisms, the lifetime of the hadronic phase, strangeness production, parton energy loss, rapidity yield asymmetry, and collective effects. With its excellent tracking and particle identification capabilities, the ALICE experiment measured a comprehensive set of mesonic and baryonic resonances. We present recent results on resonance production in pp, p–Pb, Xe–Xe and Pb–Pb collisions at various center-of-mass energies, highlighting new results of K*±, Λ(1520), and Σ*±(1385). The results are also compared to lower energy measurements and model calculations.