Speaker
Description
The formation of light (anti)nuclei in heavy-ion collisions as well as in hadron collisions has been studied experimentally and theoretically for many decades. Two competing (anti)nucleosynthesis models are typically used to describe light (anti)nuclei yields and their ratios to other hadrons in heavy-ion collisions: the statistical hadronization model (SHM) and the nucleon coalescence model.
In this talk, new measurements of (anti)nuclei production in Pb-Pb collisions at the LHC measured with the ALICE experiment are presented. With these measurements, spanning from (anti)deuterons to (anti-)4He, we show how (anti)nuclei can be used to measure both the chemical freeze-out temperature and the baryon chemical potential with great precision. Moreover, these measurements are compared to predictions from the state-of-the art statistical hadronization and coalescence models.
Additionally, the first measurement of event-by-event antideuteron number fluctuations in heavy-ion collisions is also presented and compared with expectations of the SHM and coalescence. This new observable represents an additional testing ground for these two production models.
