Strangeness production in proton-lead collisions with ALICE at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)

我的研究对象是夸克-胶子等离子体。这是夸克和胶子解禁闭的一种物质状态，只有在极端温度和密度下才会发生这种情况。这些条件是在大型强子对撞机的重离子碰撞中产生的，并使用Alice实验获取的数据进行了分析。通过对夸克-胶子等离子体的研究，我们可以从理论上更好地理解强力，即通常将夸克限制在强子内的力。我观察了夸克-胶子等离子体形成的一个特征，称为奇异性增强，正如预期的那样，这是在爱丽丝铅-铅碰撞的初始数据中看到的。然而，我们也发现了在一些质子-质子和质子-铅碰撞中奇怪增强的证据，这是令人惊讶的，因为在这些条件下预计不会形成夸克-胶子等离子体。我的研究着眼于在更高能量下获取的最新质子铅数据，以进一步研究这一现象。

My research is on the quark-gluon plasma. This is a state of matter in which the quarks and gluons become deconfined which only occurs at extreme temperatures and densities. These conditions are created in heavy-ion collisions at the LHC and are analysed using data taken by the ALICE experiment. By investigating the quark-gluon plasma we can get a better theoretical understanding of the strong force which is the force which usually confines quarks within hadrons. I look at one of the signatures of quark-gluon plasma formation called strangeness enhancement which was seen in the initial data from ALICE in lead-lead collisions as expected. However, we also found evidence of strangeness enhancement in some proton-proton and proton-lead collisions which was surprising as a quark-gluon plasma is not expected to form in these conditions. My research is looking at the latest proton-lead data taken at higher energies to investigate this phenomenon further.