Measurements of Chemical Potentials in Pb-Pb Collisions at sNN=5.02 TeV

This Letter presents the most precise measurement to date of the matter-antimatter imbalance at midrapidity in Pb-Pb collisions at a center-of-mass energy per nucleon pair sNN=5.02 TeV. Using the Statistical Hadronization framework, it is possible to obtain the value of the electric charge and baryon chemical potentials, μQ=−0.18±0.90 MeV and μB=0.71±0.45 MeV, with unprecedented precision. A centrality-differential study of the antiparticle-to-particle yield ratios of charged pions, protons, Ω baryons, and light (hyper)nuclei is performed. These results indicate that the system created in Pb-Pb collisions at the LHC is on average baryon-free and electrically neutral at midrapidity. © 2024 CERN, for the ALICE Collaboration 2024 CERN