2025/10/16 by ALICE Collaboration
#FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Experiment (hep-ex) #Nuclear Experiment (nucl-ex)
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2510.14448
In this letter, the first measurement of the femtoscopic correlation of protons and Σ+ hyperons is presented and used to study the p-Σ+ interaction. The measurement is performed with the ALICE detector in high-multiplicity triggered pp collisions at √(s) = 13 TeV. The Σ+ hyperons are reconstructed using a missing-mass approach in the decay channel to \textrmp + π0 with π0→γγ, while both Σ+ and protons are identified using a machine learning approach. These techniques result in a high reconstruction efficiency and purity, which allows the measurement of the p-Σ+ correlation function for the first time. Thanks to the high significance achieved in the p-Σ+ correlation signal, it is possible to discriminate between the predictions of different models of the N-Σ interaction and to accomplish a first determination of the p-Σ+ scattering parameters.