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HK: Fachverband Physik der Hadronen und Kerne

HK 35: Heavy-Ion Collisions and QCD Phases VI

HK 35.2: Talk

Wednesday, March 12, 2025, 17:45–18:00, HS 3 Chemie

Decoding light (anti)nuclei formation with femtoscopy in ALICE — Laura Fabbietti, Bhawani Singh, Dimitar Mihaylov, Maximilian Mahlein, and •Marcel Lesch for the ALICE Germany collaboration — TU München, Garching, Germany

The formation of light (anti)nuclei in ultra-relativistic nuclear collisions remains one of the longest-standing puzzles in hadronic physics. In recent years, two primary theoretical frameworks have been proposed to address this question. Statistical hadronization models posit that light (anti)nuclei emerge directly from a thermalized medium alongside all other hadrons. In contrast, coalescence models describe light (anti)nuclei formation due to nucleons fusing together after freeze-out. However, both models can successfully describe key observables, such as deuteron yields. To further investigate this puzzle, we present recent results from ALICE on p–π^± and d–π^± femtoscopy in pp collisions at √s = 13 TeV. Understanding the pion-multinucleon (d–π^±) system begins with a detailed study of p–π^± correlations, which serve as a baseline for the pion-nucleon dynamics. These correlations exhibit pronounced resonance structures, providing insights into the life of Δ resonances produced in ultra-relativistic nuclear collisions. Similar structures are observed in d–π^±, revealing residual correlations from pions and nucleons that stem from a common Δ decay before the deuteron formation. These findings suggest that pion-assisted fusion processes play a significant role in light (anti)nuclei production, offering new perspectives on this long-standing puzzle.

Funded by the DFG under Grant SFB 1258.