Identified light-flavour particle production measured with ALICE at the LHC as a probe of soft QCD and hot hadronic matter

ALICE is a general-purpose heavy-ion experiment able to identify particles over a wide momentum range thanks to excellent vertexing and tracking performance, low material budget and different Particle IDentification (PID) techniques. In this paper the measurement of the production of identified light flavour particles in pp, p–Pb and Pb–Pb collisions is reported. It is of fundamental importance to study the particle production mechanisms playing a role in the different momentum ranges and probe the hot medium formed in heavy-ion collisions. Information on the effects of the medium produced in Pb–Pb collisions on particle production can be obtained comparing the particle ratios in pp and Pb–Pb events and studying the nuclear modification factor (RAA). The transverse momentum (pT) integrated yields and ratios are then discussed in terms of thermal models to extract the properties of the medium produced in Pb–Pb collisions at the chemical freeze-out.