Anomalous kaon correlations in Pb--Pb collisions at the LHC with ALICE

Two-particle correlation functions provide critical information about the medium quark--gluon plasma (QGP) created in heavy-ion collisions. Recent ALICE measurements have demonstrated large dynamical correlations between produced neutral and charged kaons in Pb--Pb collisions at $sqrt{s_{ m{NN}}} = 2.76 $ TeV~cite{ALICE:2021fpb}. These integrated correlations cannot be described by conventional heavy-ion models, such as EPOS and AMPT. So far, the ALICE measurements can only be described by invoking the presence of condensates ~cite{Kapusta:2022ovq}. A candidate for such a condensate is the Disoriented Chiral Condensate (DCC)~cite{Mohanty:2005mv}. DCC arises from chiral symmetry restoration in the QGP, which breaks during the phase transition to form a condensate which coherently emits hadrons. Therefore, the discovery of DCC would indicate that chiral symmetry is restored in the QGP, a major prediction of QGP formation that has yet to be confirmed experimentally.

To investigate these anomalous kaon correlations further, we will present a differential analysis of two-particle angular correlation functions of charged and neutral kaons as a function of $Delta varphi$ and $Delta eta$ in Pb--Pb collisions at $sqrt{s_{ m{NN}}} = 5.02 $ TeV. The variables, $varphi$ and $eta$ are azimuthal angle and pseudorapidity respectively. The results from this differential study will be presented and analyzed in the context of possible DCC signals, which are predicted to be strongest at $Delta varphi sim0$ and $Delta eta sim 0$.

}

egin{thebibliography}{0}

ibitem{ALICE:2021fpb} S.~Acharya extit{et al.} (ALICE),Phys. Lett. B extbf{832}, 137242 (2022)

ibitem{Kapusta:2022ovq} J.~I.~Kapusta, S.~Pratt and M.~Singh, Phys. Rev. C extbf{107}, no.1, 014913 (2023)

ibitem{Mohanty:2005mv} B.~Mohanty and J.~Serreau, Phys. Rept. extbf{414}, 263-358 (2005)

end{thebibliography}