Production and properties of hypernuclei with ALICE

Hypernuclei are bound states of nucleons and hyperons. The measurement of the production of hypernuclei with mass numbers $\rm A=3$ and $\rm A=4$ in proton-proton and heavy-ion collisions is a powerful tool to investigate the hypernucleosynthesis mechanism. In the coalescence model, the production yields are sensitive to the interplay between the spatial extension of the nucleus wavefunction and the baryon-emitting source size, whereas, in the statistical hadronisation model, the nuclear structure does not come into play. Hypernuclei span a wide range of wavefunction radii, from about $\rm 2\;fm$ for $\rm A=4$ hypernuclei to about $\rm 10\;fm$ for the hypertriton, making them ideal probes to test such models in various collision systems. In addition, the study of hypernuclei properties provides information on nucleon-hyperon interactions, complementing the results obtained through femtoscopy correlation measurements. The strength of such interactions is a fundamental input to calculate the equation-of-state of the high-density nuclear matter found inside neutron stars. A precise understanding of the hypertriton decay modes and their branching ratios contributes to further constraining its properties. However, current experimental knowledge of them remains limited. This can be addressed through a measurement of its charged mesonic three-body decay into $\rm d+p+\mathrm{\pi}$, as presented in this contribution. Recent measurements of $\rm {}^3_{\Lambda}H$, $\rm {}^4_{\Lambda}H$, and $\rm {}^4_{\Lambda}He$ are reported, based on data samples collected by the ALICE experiment during LHC Run 2 and Run 3. The results are compared with predictions from state-of-the-art production models that implement both coalescence and thermal approaches.