Speaker
Description
Recent observations at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have revealed a significant enhancement in baryon production in hadronic collisions compared to e$^+$e$^-$ and ep collisions, challenging the long-held assumption of fragmentation universality. This phenomenon, initially observed in the charm sector, has also been observed in the beauty sector, indicating a broader implication for heavy-flavor hadronization processes. This observation has led to the development of several models attempting to explain these observations, by implementing modified hadronization approaches with respect to the in-vacuum fragmentation process. Proposed mechanisms include color reconnection beyond leading-color approximation, hadronisation via coalescence, and feed-down from unobserved resonant states in a statistical hadronization approach.
To further elucidate this phenomenon, recent studies have focused on baryon-to-meson ratios as a function of event multiplicity. Intriguingly, evidence of a multiplicity dependence, with increased ratios in high-multiplicity events, has been observed in both the charm and beauty sectors, suggesting a possible connection between baryon enhancement and the local parton density. These investigations have significant implications also for heavy-ion physics, potentially bridging the gap between phenomena observed in proton-proton and heavy-ion collisions. A comprehensive understanding of these effects is essential for refining our theoretical models of heavy-quark hadronisation in hadronic environments.
In this contribution, new ALICE measurements of prompt and non-prompt $\Lambda_{\rm c}^+$-baryon and ${\rm D}^0$-meson production cross sections, evaluated on the dataset of proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 13.6$ TeV collected during the LHC Run 3, will be reported. The $\Lambda_{\rm c}^+/{\rm D}^0$ production-yield ratios in the same collision system, both multiplicity integrated and as a function of multiplicity, will also be discussed and compared to state-of-the-art model predictions implementing different hadronisation approaches.
| Category | Experiment |
|---|---|
| Collaboration (if applicable) | ALICE |
