The observed increase in strange hadron production with multiplicity in high-energy hadronic and heavy-ion collisions remains an open question. The experimental data are described by either the improved phenomenological modeling of string fragmentation or canonical-ensemble versions of the statistical hadronization model. In this seminar, we will present the first event-by-event fluctuation measurements of multi-strange baryon yields and their correlation with strange mesons as a function of multiplicity. These measurements probe the correlations between quantum numbers conserved during the hadronization process, enabling us to distinguish between different models of strange hadron production. A significant deviation exceeding 5σ is observed between the experimental results and string-fragmentation-based models across various collision systems, while models based on (partial) thermal equilibration and long-range strangeness correlations successfully describe the data.

Refreshments will be served at 10:30