Speaker
Description
In the relativistic heavy-ion collisions at the LHC, the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) is produced during the deconfinement phase transition, when the system reaches a specific temperature ($T_{ch}$) and energy density.
Lattice QCD calculations indicate that chiral symmetry (CS) restoration occurs around $T_{ch}$ as well ($\sim 156$ MeV). CS restoration can be investigated using parity partner resonances, particles that have the same quantum numbers except parity, such as $\mathrm{K^{*}(892)^0}$ and $\mathrm{K_1(1270)}$. In the vacuum these resonances exhibit different masses, decay lengths, and production yields. However, at a temperature near those associated with CS restoration, these discrepancies are expected to diminish, resulting in a $\mathrm{K_1}$ to $\mathrm{K^*}$ production ratio higher than the one predicted by the statistical hadronization model.
The ALICE Collaboration has already measured $\mathrm{K^*}$ production spectra using LHC Run 2 data, evaluating the $\mathrm{K^*/K}$ yield ratios in pp, p-Pb and Pb-Pb collisions, providing an experimental evidence that $\mathrm{K^{*}(892)^0}$ decay products undergo rescattering during the hadronic phase of the QGP evolution. However, the reconstruction of the $\mathrm{K_1}$ resonance has not been achieved.
Thanks to its excellent tracking and particle identification capabilities, the ALICE Collaboration has measured a comprehensive set of mesonic and baryonic resonances. In this contribution, recent results on resonance production in pp, p--Pb, Xe--Xe and Pb--Pb collisions at various centre-of-mass energies, including new feasibility studies on $\mathrm{K^*(892)^0}$ using LHC Run 3 data, will be presented and compared to state-of-the-art models. Furthermore, the feasibility study of the $\mathrm{K_1}$ measurement with ALICE and plans for investigating CS restoration will be discussed.
