Proton - Lambda correlations in Au-Au Collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 200$ GeV from the STAR experiment

TL;DR

This paper investigates the space-time evolution of particle sources in heavy-ion collisions by analyzing proton-lambda correlations, revealing strong interaction potentials and annihilation effects in specific particle-antiparticle systems.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed study of non-identical strange particle correlations in Au-Au collisions at 200 GeV, including extraction of source sizes and interaction potentials.

Findings

Significant annihilation effects in p-Λ̄ and p̄-Λ systems.

Determined strong interaction potentials for these particle pairs.

Extracted source sizes from correlation functions.

Abstract

The space-time evolution of the source of particles formed in the collision of nuclei can be studied through particle correlations. The STAR experiment is dedicated to study ultra-relativistic heavy ions collisions and allows to measure non-identical strange particle correlations. The source size can be extracted by studying $p-\Lambda$, $\bar{p}-\bar{\Lambda}$, $\bar{p}-\Lambda$ and $p-\bar{\Lambda}$ correlation functions. Strong interaction potential has been studied for these systems using an analytical model. Final State Interaction (FSI) parameters have been determined and has shown a significant annihilation process present in $\bar{p}-\Lambda$ and $p-\bar{\Lambda}$ systems not present in $p-\Lambda$ and $\bar{p}-\bar{\Lambda}$.