The fate of weakly bound light nuclei in central collider experiments: A challenge in favor of a late continuous decoupling mechanism

Abstract

Arguments are presented that the reaction products of central high energy nuclear collisions up to collider energies can rigorously be interpreted in terms of a continuous decoupling mechanism based on continuous equations of motion. The various aspects of the collision dynamics are investigated in terms of the individual decoupling processes. Thereby each observed particle decouples during its own temporal decoupling window. This includes a “very late” decoupling of the faintly bound Hypertritons observed in recent ALICE experiments. The success of the strategy is based upon 200 years old wisdom and leads to a revised interpretation of the entire decoupling process.