Speaker
Description
Femtoscopy has been proven to be a powerful experimental tool to probe the residual strong interaction among hadrons. By measuring momentum correlations between particle pairs produced in nucleus--nucleus collisions at the LHC, the ALICE Collaboration has provided precise constraints on interactions for which experimental information is otherwise scarce or unavailable. The LHC Run 2 data delivered, particularly in the strangeness sector, a complementary approach to traditional methods such as scattering experiments and hypernuclear spectroscopy. The data from the recently concluded LHC Run 3, recorded with the upgraded ALICE detector, now open access to even more exotic and previously inaccessible systems.
In this contribution, the latest ALICE results will be presented. These include the first measurement of the $\rho^{0}$--p correlation, providing an unprecedented opportunity to probe the nature of dynamically generated excited N states, including their possible molecular character. The first study of the axial-vector meson--nucleon interaction via $f_{1}(1285)$--p correlations, as well as the most precise femtoscopic measurements to date in the charm sector will also be presented. Additionally, results from femtoscopy involving bound nuclei will be discussed, shedding light on the microscopic mechanisms behind the formation of light nuclei in pp collisions.