Charged kaon femtoscopic correlations in p$-$Pb collisions at $\mathbf{\sqrt{{\textit s}_{\rm NN}}}=5.02$ TeV with ALICE at the LHC

TL;DR

This study measures charged kaon correlations in p$-$Pb collisions at 5.02 TeV to understand particle production mechanisms and compare femtoscopic radii across different collision systems, revealing size and momentum dependencies.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed femtoscopic analysis of charged kaons in p$-$Pb collisions at LHC energies, comparing results with pp and Pb$-$Pb systems to enhance understanding of particle production.

Findings

Femtoscopic radii increase with multiplicity.

Radii decrease with pair transverse momentum.

p$-$Pb radii are similar to those in pp at comparable multiplicity.

Abstract

Particle correlations at small relative momenta can be used to measure the space$-$time characteristics of particle production on the femtoscopic (fm=10$^{-15}$ m) level in high-energy collisions. Such correlations arise due to quantum statistics and final state interactions. We report correlations of two charged identical kaons measured in p$-$Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}=5.02$ TeV by the ALICE experiment at the LHC. The femtoscopic invariant radii and correlation strengths are extracted from the one-dimensional kaon correlation functions and are compared to those obtained in pp and Pb$-$Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s}=7$ TeV and $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}=2.76$ TeV, respectively. Kaon femtoscopy in p$-$Pb collisions is an important supplement to that in pp and Pb$-$Pb collisions because it allows one to understand the particle production mechanisms in different collision systems. It also complements the existing pion correlation results. The obtained radii increase with increasing multiplicity and decrease with increasing pair transverse momentum. At comparable multiplicity, the radii measured in p$-$Pb collisions are close to those observed in pp collisions, whereas it is difficult to compare them with the results from Pb$-$Pb collisions because of a big multiplicity gap.