ALICE charming take on strangeness enhancement in pp collisions

Understanding strangeness enhancement in proton-proton (pp) collisions at the LHC is a challenge for hadronization models. Recent observations indicate that a substantial fraction of the detected Ω− baryons may originate from the decay of charm baryons, e.g. from Ωc0 → Ω− + π+. However, the Ωc0 production cross section, as well as branching ratios in different Ωc0 decay channels, are unknown, preventing an exact estimation of the contribution of baryons coming from charm-hadron decays. In this work, the first measurement of the fraction of Ω− baryons originating from heavy hadron decays in pp collisions at √s = 13.6 TeV, performed by the ALICE collaboration, is presented. This result is enabled by the new ALICE Inner Tracking System, which allows for the tracking of the Ω− baryon prior to its decay. By studying the evolution of the fraction of Ω− coming from heavy hadron decays and by comparing it with the existing models, the role of heavy hadron production as a driver of strangeness enhancement is explored.