Strangeness production in proton-lead collisions with ALICE at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)

My research is on the quark-gluon plasma. This is a state of matter in which the quarks and gluons become deconfined which only occurs at extreme temperatures and densities. These conditions are created in heavy-ion collisions at the LHC and are analysed using data taken by the ALICE experiment. By investigating the quark-gluon plasma we can get a better theoretical understanding of the strong force which is the force which usually confines quarks within hadrons. I look at one of the signatures of quark-gluon plasma formation called strangeness enhancement which was seen in the initial data from ALICE in lead-lead collisions as expected. However, we also found evidence of strangeness enhancement in some proton-proton and proton-lead collisions which was surprising as a quark-gluon plasma is not expected to form in these conditions. My research is looking at the latest proton-lead data taken at higher energies to investigate this phenomenon further.