Recent results on strangeness enhancement in small collision systems with ALICE

Abstract: Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) predicts that, at sufficiently high temperature and energy density, nuclear matter undergoes a phase transition from confined hadrons to a deconfined state of quarks and gluons known as the quark-gluon plasma (QGP). One of the historically proposed signatures of QGP formation is strangeness enhancement (SE), characterized by an increased production of strange hadrons in heavy-ion collisions relative to proton--proton (pp) interactions. At the LHC, the ALICE experiment has measured a continuous increase in the strange-to-non-strange hadron yield ratios as a function of midrapidity charged-particle multiplicity, not only in large systems like Pb--Pb but also in small systems such as pp and p--Pb. The origin of SE in small systems is still under debate, motivating further experimental investigations. This article presents recent ALICE analyses that offer complementary insights into the phenomenon. These include (i) multi-differential studies using event-shape observables such as transverse spherocity and the concept of effective energy, and (ii) the first measurement of multiplicity distributions of strange and multi-strange hadrons, P($\textit{n}_{S}$), in pp collisions.