Nuclear clusters in an off-equilibrium thermal model

Abstract

The production of light (anti-)(hyper-)nuclei during the hadronic phase of heavy-ion collisions at the LHC is discussed in the framework of an extended thermal model approach — the Saha equation —making use of an analogy between the evolution of the early universe after the Big Bang and that of ``Little Bangs’’ created in the lab. Then rate equations are utilized to relax the assumption of relative chemical equilibrium of nuclear reactions, revealing only moderate deviations from the Saha equation baseline.