Highlights of the production of (anti-)(hyper-)nuclei and exotica with ALICE at the LHC

Measurements of the production of light (anti-)nuclei and (anti-)hypernuclei have been performed in different colliding systems, namely pp, p–Pb and Pb–Pb. The results of the production in Pb–Pb collisions of light (anti-)(hyper-)nuclei follows the expectation of thermal models, whereas the production of nuclei in p–Pb collisions tends to closer follow the expectations from coalescence models. Both models can give predictions for the production of hypothetical states such as bound states of two Λ hyperons or of a Λ and a neutron, which are expected to decay weakly. These states are searched for and no signal is found, thus upper limits, which are significantly below the model expectations, are set. Further, the most recent measurement of the lifetime of the hypertriton determined in Pb–Pb collisions at sNN=5.02 TeV at the LHC gives a value exactly between the expectations of the most recent theoretical calculation and the world average. In addition, the new result is in agreement with other recent measurements in heavy-ion collisions.