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Hyperon/meson ratios in rare high-multiplicity $pp$ collisions at energies available at the Large Hadron Collider, and potential signatures for mini-quark-gluon plasma formation

We use the framework of the HIJING/BB v2.0 model to simulate high-multiplicity (HM) $p+p$ collision events at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to study observables sensitive to possible collective phenomena, such as strong longitudinal color fields (SLCF) modeled by an enhanced string tension ($κ$). We focus on the hyperon/meson yield ratios at center-of-mass (c.m.) energy $\sqrt{s}$ = 7 TeV, in the transverse momentum region, $1 < p_T < 4 $ GeV/{\it c}. For minimum bias events these ratios are well described assuming an energy dependence $κ= κ(s)= κ_{0} (s/s_{0})^{0.04} {\rm GeV/fm}$ ($κ_{0}$= 1 GeV/fm), giving a value $κ= 2$ GeV/fm at $\sqrt{s}$ = 7 TeV. We compare minimum bias (MB) events to simulated HM events assuming that $κ(MB)=2$ GeV/fm could grow to an extreme value of $κ(HM)=5$ GeV/fm that saturates the strangeness suppression factor. With this assumption the model predicts a very strong enhancement of (multi)strange baryon/meson ratios in HM events. If observed, such an enhancement could be also interpreted as a possible signature for formation in HM $p+p$ collision events of a deconfined but out of local thermal equilibrium {\em mini quark-gluon plasma} (mQGP).