Signatures of Flux Tube Fragmentation and Strangeness Correlations in pp Collisions

TL;DR

This paper explores how flux tube fragmentation in high-energy proton-proton collisions creates specific hadron correlations in rapidity, charge, flavor, and azimuthal angles, revealing underlying conservation laws and particle production mechanisms.

Contribution

It introduces a model linking flux tube fragmentation to observable hadron correlations, emphasizing the role of local conservation laws in high-energy collisions.

Findings

Hadron chains ordered in rapidity show charge and flavor correlations.

Opposite charge or strangeness hadron pairs exhibit specific angular correlation patterns.

Flux tube fragmentation explains observed hadron correlation phenomena in pp collisions.

Abstract

In the fragmentation of a color flux tube in high-energy $pp$ collisions or $e^+$-$e^-$ annihilations, the production of $q$-$\bar q$ pairs along a color flux tube precedes the fragmentation of the tube. The local conservation laws in the production of these $q$-$\bar q$ pairs will lead to the correlations of adjacently produced hadrons. As a consequence, the fragmentation of a flux tube will yield a many-hadron correlation in the form of a chain of hadrons ordered in rapidity, with adjacent hadrons correlated in charges, flavor contents, and azimuthal angles. It will also lead to a two-hadron angular correlation between two hadrons with opposite charges or strangeness that is suppressed at $\Delta \phi\sim 0$ but enhanced at $\Delta \phi\sim \pi$, within a rapidity window $\Delta y $$\sim$$1/(dN/dy)$.