INFN and Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia of University of Bologna stood out in the 19th edition of Strangeness in Quark Matter International Conference, which took place from 17 to 22 May 2021 (online)!
The topics which were discussed focus on new experimental and theoretical developments on the production of strange and heavy-flavour quarks in high energy heavy-ion collisions and in astrophysical phenomena, topics which are studied by the ALICE experiment at the LHC, in which INFN participates. The state of the art on these research topics was presented in 41 plenary session talks and 96 parallel session presentations.
This year experimental overview was presented by Francesca Bellini, who recently joined our Department.
Among the youngest speakers in the parallel sessions, Francesca Ercolessi, PhD student of the University of Bologna, was awarded with the “Andre Mischke Young Scientist Award”, for the best experimental presentation of a young scientist. In her talk [1], Francesca presented recent results which help better understand the origin of the increase in the production of particles containing “strange” quarks, observed in proton-proton collisions at the LHC, with the number of charged particles produced in the event, a result to which the Bologna group contributed in 2017 with a publication on Nature Physics [2].
[1] F. Ercolessi “Investigating the origin of strangeness enhancement in small systems through multi-differential analyses with ALICE” SQM2021 International Conference, 18 May 2021.
[2] ALICE Collaboration, Nature Physics 13, 535–539 (2017).