Production of multi-strange baryons in 7 TeV proton-proton collisions with ALICE

Abstract: In the perspective of comparisons between proton-proton and heavy-ion physics, understanding the production mechanisms (soft and hard) in pp that lead to strange particles is of importance. Measurements of charged multi-strange (anti-)baryons (Omega and Xi) are presented for pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV. This report is based on results obtained by ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) from the 2010 data-taking. Taking advantage of the characteristic cascade-decay topology, the identification of Xi-, anti-Xi+, Omega- and anti-Omega+ can be performed, over a wide range of momenta (e.g. from 0.6 to 8.5 GeV/c for Xi-, with the present statistics analysed). The production at central rapidity (|y| < 0.5) as a function of transverse momentum, dN/dptdy, is presented. These results are compared to PYTHIA Perugia 2011 predictions.