A1 Journal article (refereed)
Scattering Studies with Low-Energy Kaon-Proton Femtoscopy in Proton-Proton Collisions at the LHC (2020)

ALICE Collaboration. (2020). Scattering Studies with Low-Energy Kaon-Proton Femtoscopy in Proton-Proton Collisions at the LHC. Physical Review Letters, 124(9), Article 092301. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.092301

JYU authors or editors

Publication details

All authors or editors: ALICE Collaboration

Journal or series: Physical Review Letters

ISSN: 0031-9007

eISSN: 1079-7114

Publication year: 2020

Volume: 124

Issue number: 9

Article number: 092301

Publisher: American Physical Society

Publication country: United States

Publication language: English

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.092301

Publication open access: Openly available

Publication channel open access: Partially open access channel

Publication is parallel published (JYX): https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/68357

Web address of parallel published publication (pre-print): https://arxiv.org/abs/1905.13470

Abstract

The study of the strength and behavior of the antikaon-nucleon ((K) over bar N) interaction constitutes one of the key focuses of the strangeness sector in low-energy quantum chromodynamics (QCD). In this Letter a unique high-precision measurement of the strong interaction between kaons and protons, close and above the kinematic threshold, is presented. The femtoscopic measurements of the correlation function at low pair-frame relative momentum of (K+ p circle plus K- (p) over bar) and (K- p circle plus K+ (p) over bar) pairs measured in pp collisions at root s = 5, 7, and 13 TeV are reported. A structure observed around a relative momentum of 58 MeV/c in the measured correlation function of (K- p circle plus K+ (p) over bar) with a significance of 4.4 sigma constitutes the first experimental evidence for the opening of the ((K) over bar (0)(n) circle plus K-0 (n) over bar) breaking channel due to the mass difference between charged and neutral kaons. The measured correlation functions have been compared to Julich and Kyoto models in addition to the Coulomb potential. The high-precision data at low relative momenta presented in this work prove femtoscopy to be a powerful complementary tool to scattering experiments and provide new constraints above the (K) over barN threshold for low-energy QCD chiral models.

Keywords: particle physics

Free keywords: sigma-hyperon production; nucleon interactions; chiral dynamics; p interactions; lambda(1405)

Contributing organizations

Ministry reporting: Yes

VIRTA submission year: 2020

JUFO rating: 3