Title: Enhanced production of multi-strange hadrons in high-multiplicity proton-proton collisions
Author: Alice Collaboration
Subject: Nuclear Experiment ; High Energy Physics - Experiment
Description: At sufficiently high temperature and energy density, nuclear matter undergoes a transition to a phase in which quarks and gluons are not confined: the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) [1]. Such an extreme state of strongly-interacting QCD (Quantum Chromo-Dynamics) matter is produced in the laboratory with high-energy collisions of heavy nuclei, where an enhanced production of strange hadrons is observed [2-6]. Strangeness enhancement, originally proposed as a signature of QGP formation in nuclear collisions [7], is more pronounced for multi-strange baryons. Several effects typical of heavy-ion phenomenology have been observed in high-multiplicity proton-proton (pp) collisions [8,9]. Yet, enhanced production of multi-strange particles has not been reported so far. Here we present the first observation of strangeness enhancement in high-multiplicity pp collisions. We find that the integrated yields of strange and multi-strange particles relative to pions increases significantly with the event charged-particle... Comment: 18 pages, 4 captioned figures, 1 table, authors from page 13, published version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/2929, Nature Physics 2017
Is part of: Nature Physics volume 13, pages535-539 (2017)
Identifier: 1606.07424 (ARXIV ID)