The mean lifetimes of light nuclei and self-consistency of the statistical hadronization model

The statistical hadronization model (SHM) describes the yields of hadrons and nuclei in heavy ion collisions. SHM parametrizes the data in terms of a small number of universal parameters such as the chemical freeze-out temperature and chemical potentials. SHM achieves a remarkable phenomenological success over nine orders of magnitude in the hadron masses and several orders of magnitude in the energy of the colliding ions. In this talk, I will discuss the consistency of the assumptions underlying SHM by focusing on the yield of light nuclei whose binding energies are much lower than the chemical freeze-out temperature predicted by the model. The statistical hadronization model can be used to derive the bounds on the mean lifetimes of the light nuclei in a thermally equilibrated hadronic gas. The analysis shows that these lifetime bounds are badly violated at the chemical freeze-out temperature predicted by SHM.