Search for exotic hyper-matter and measurement of nuclei with ALICE at the LHC

The high collision energies reached at the LHC lead to significant production yields of light (anti)-nuclei and hyper-matter in proton-proton and, in particular, Pb-Pb collisions. The excellent particle identification capabilities of the ALICE apparatus, in particular the specific energy loss in the Time Projection Chamber (TPC) and Time-of-Flight (TOF) measurement, allow for the detection of such rarely produced particles. Further, the Inner Tracking System (ITS) gives the possibility to separate primary nuclei from those coming from the weak decay of heavier systems. This offers the unique opportunity to search for exotica like the bound state of a A and a neutron which would decay into deuteron and pion, or the bound states of two As. We show here the performance of the ALICE apparatus in the sector on (anti-)nuclei and in particular the results on deuteron production in Pb-Pb collisions at = 2.76 TeV. These are compared with thermal model predictions. We further present the current state of the searches, by their upper limits on the production yields, and compare the results to thermal and coalescence model expectations.