Probing the internal structures of pΩ and ΩΩ with their production at the LHC

The strange dibaryons pΩ (^5S_2) and ΩΩ (^1S_0) are likely bound, existing either in molecular states like the deuteron or as more exotic compact six-quark states. Here, we investigate the production of these two dibaryons in Pb+Pb collisions at √(s_NN)=2.76 TeV at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) within a covariant coalescence model, which employs a blast-wave-like parametrization for the phase-space configurations of constituent particles at freeze-out. For the molecular states, the pΩ and ΩΩ are produced via p-Ω and Ω-Ω coalescence, respectively, while for the six-quark states, they are formed through uudsss and ssssss coalescence. We find that the yield ratio N_pΩ/N_Ω and N_ΩΩ/N_Ω have a distinct centrality dependence between the molecular and multi-quark states, thus offering a promising way for distinguishing the two states. Our results suggest that the measurements of pΩ and ΩΩ production in relativistic heavy-ion collisions can shed light on their internal structures.