Study of strange particle production in pp collisions with the ALICE detector

Abstract

ALICE is well suited for strange particle production studies since it has very good reconstruction capabilities in the low transverse momentum (pt) region and it also allows the identification to be extended up to quite high pt. Charged strange mesons (K+, K−) are reconstructed via energy loss measurements whereas neutral strange mesons (K0s) and strange hyperons (Λ, Ξ, Ω) are identified via vertex reconstruction. All these particles carry important information: firstly, the measurement of production yields and the particle ratio within the statistical models can help to understand the medium created, and secondly the dynamics at intermediate pt investigated via the baryon over meson ratio (Λ/K0s) allows a better understanding of the hadronization mechanisms and of the underlying event processes. We present these two aspects of the strange particle analysis in pp collisions using simulated data.