Hadronization into Nuclei: Does Size Matter?

Abstract: We investigate an extension of the statistical hadronization model (SHM) that takes (hyper)nucleus sizes into account. The spatial extent of nuclear wave functions relative to the fireball volume is used to calculate a size correction, which describes the suppression with respect to a point-like treatment of the (hyper)nucleus at hadronization. For several species of light nuclei (d, ${}<sup>{3}\mathrm{H}$, ${}<sup>{3}\mathrm{He}$) and for the hypernucleus ${}<sup>{3}_Λ\mathrm{H}$, the predicted effects of the size correction on SHM yields are compared to yield measurements in pp, p-Pb, and Pb-Pb collisions in the ALICE experiment. The experimental data suggest that this size correction, based on applying final-state wave functions at chemical freeze-out, does not give a consistent description of (hyper)nucleus production in nuclear and hadronic collisions. By contrast, the SHM without a nuclear-size correction provides a substantially better description of the data. This result lends further support to the interpretation that such nuclear states are formed from initially compact (multi-quark) configurations which after hadronization expand to their final-state wave functions.