Speaker
Description
A fundamental ingredient of the ALICE physics programme for the new decade is a comprehensive study of charm and multi-charm baryon production. Because charm is exclusively produced in initial hard scatterings, such measurements may provide unique insight into the QGP medium as well as hadronization from proton-proton to lead-lead collisions.
We will present a new method for detection of multiply charmed baryons via their decays into strange baryons, using `strangeness tracking'. In this method, the state-of-the-art upgraded silicon detectors in ALICE during Runs 3, 4 and beyond will enable the novel possibility of tracking strange hadrons directly before they decay, leading to a very significant improvement in impact-parameter resolution. In this work, we will discuss how this new technique will be crucial to distinguish secondary strange baryons originating from charm decays from primary strange baryons. This is a particularly interesting possibility for the $\Omega^{-}$ baryon coming from $\Omega_{c}^{0}$→$\Omega\pi$ decays, since there is no other feeddown source for $\Omega^-$. This, in turn, means that the main $\Omega^-$ background for the $\Omega_c$ measurement will point most accurately to the primary vertex, unlike pions or protons from other charmed baryon decays.
We will illustrate the achievable performance of strangeness tracking for the Run 3 configuration of ALICE with the upgraded Inner Tracking System, which is fully instrumented with silicon pixel detectors. Moreover, we will discuss the potential of this technique in a future experiment with an extensive silicon tracking detector with a first layer very close to the interaction point. Finally, we will also cover other potential major applications of strangeness tracking, including measurements of hypernuclei such as the $^{3}_{\Lambda}$H.
| Collaboration | ALICE |
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