Investigating the p--π± and p--p--π± dynamics with femtoscopy in pp collisions at s=13 TeV

ALICE Collaboration

doi:10.1140/epja/s10050-025-01615-4

Investigating the p--π± and p--p--π± dynamics with femtoscopy in pp collisions at s=13 TeV

ALICE Collaboration

Relativistic Nuclear Physics

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

The interaction between pions and nucleons plays a crucial role in hadron physics. It represents a fundamental building block of the low-energy QCD dynamics and is subject to several resonance excitations. This work studies the p--π± dynamics using femtoscopic correlations in high-multiplicity pp collisions at s=13 TeV measured by ALICE at the LHC. As the final-state interaction between protons and pions is well constrained by scattering experiments and the study of pionic hydrogen, the results give access to information on the particle-emitting source in pp collisions using the femtoscopy methods. The scaling of the source size of primordial protons and pions against their pair transverse mass is extracted. The results are compared with the source sizes studied with p–p, p--K+, and π±–π± pairs by ALICE in the same collision system and are found to be in agreement for the different particle pairs. This reinforces recent findings by ALICE of a common emission source for all hadron-pairs in pp collisions at LHC energies. Furthermore, the p--p--π± systems are studied using three-particle femtoscopy in pp collisions at s=13 TeV. The presence of three-body effects is analyzed utilizing the cumulant expansion method. In this formalism, the known two-body interactions are subtracted in order to isolate the three-body effects. For both, p--p--π+ and p--p--π-, a non-zero cumulant is found, indicating effects beyond pairwise interactions. These results give information on the coupling of the pion to multiple nucleons.

Original language	English
Article number	194
Journal	European Physical Journal A
Volume	61
Issue number	8
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/s10050-025-01615-4
State	Published - Aug 2025

Funding

The ALICE Collaboration would like to thank all its engineers and technicians for their invaluable contributions to the construction of the experiment and the CERN accelerator teams for the outstanding performance of the LHC complex. The ALICE Collaboration gratefully acknowledges the resources and support provided by all Grid centres and the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG) collaboration. The ALICE Collaboration acknowledges the following funding agencies for their support in building and running the ALICE detector: A. I. Alikhanyan National Science Laboratory (Yerevan Physics Institute) Foundation (ANSL), State Committee of Science and World Federation of Scientists (WFS), Armenia; Austrian Academy of Sciences, Austrian Science Fund (FWF): [M 2467-N36] and Nationalstiftung für Forschung, Technologie und Entwicklung, Austria; Ministry of Communications and High Technologies, National Nuclear Research Center, Azerbaijan; Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos (Finep), Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) and Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Brazil; Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science, within the National Roadmap for Research Infrastructures 2020-2027 (object CERN), Bulgaria; Ministry of Education of China (MOEC), Ministry of Science & Technology of China (MSTC) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), China; Ministry of Science and Education and Croatian Science Foundation, Croatia; Centro de Aplicaciones Tecnológicas y Desarrollo Nuclear (CEADEN), Cubaenergía, Cuba; Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic, Czech Republic; The Danish Council for Independent Research | Natural Sciences, the VILLUM FONDEN and Danish National Research Foundation (DNRF), Denmark; Helsinki Institute of Physics (HIP), Finland; Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique (CEA) and Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules (IN2P3) and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), France; Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) and GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH, Germany; General Secretariat for Research and Technology, Ministry of Education, Research and Religions, Greece; National Research, Development and Innovation Office, Hungary; Department of Atomic Energy Government of India (DAE), Department of Science and Technology, Government of India (DST), University Grants Commission, Government of India (UGC) and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), India; National Research and Innovation Agency - BRIN, Indonesia; Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), Italy; Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI, Japan; Consejo Nacional de Ciencia (CONACYT) y Tecnología, through Fondo de Cooperación Internacional en Ciencia y Tecnología (FONCICYT) and Dirección General de Asuntos del Personal Academico (DGAPA), Mexico; Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO), Netherlands; The Research Council of Norway, Norway; Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Peru; Ministry of Science and Higher Education, National Science Centre and WUT ID-UB, Poland; Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information and National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF), Republic of Korea; Ministry of Education and Scientific Research, Institute of Atomic Physics, Ministry of Research and Innovation and Institute of Atomic Physics and Universitatea Nationala de Stiinta si Tehnologie Politehnica Bucuresti, Romania; Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic, Slovakia; National Research Foundation of South Africa, South Africa; Swedish Research Council (VR) and Knut & Alice Wallenberg Foundation (KAW), Sweden; European Organization for Nuclear Research, Switzerland; Suranaree University of Technology (SUT), National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA) and National Science, Research and Innovation Fund (NSRF via PMU-B B05F650021), Thailand; Turkish Energy, Nuclear and Mineral Research Agency (TENMAK), Turkey; National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Ukraine; Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), United Kingdom; National Science Foundation of the United States of America (NSF) and United States Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Physics (DOE NP), United States of America. In addition, individual groups or members have received support from: Czech Science Foundation (grant no. 23-07499S), Czech Republic; FORTE project, reg. no. CZ.02.01.01/00/22_008/0004632, Czech Republic, co-funded by the European Union, Czech Republic; European Research Council (grant no. 950692), European Union; ICSC - Centro Nazionale di Ricerca in High Performance Computing, Big Data and Quantum Computing, European Union - NextGenerationEU; Academy of Finland (Center of Excellence in Quark Matter) (grant nos. 346327, 346328), Finland; Deutsche Forschungs Gemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) “Neutrinos and Dark Matter in Astro- and Particle Physics” (grant no. SFB 1258), Germany. Open access funding provided by CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research).

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10.1140/epja/s10050-025-01615-4

Cite this

@article{062fe62d30974431a29278a11c6befe2,

title = "Investigating the p--π± and p--p--π± dynamics with femtoscopy in pp collisions at s=13 TeV",

abstract = "The interaction between pions and nucleons plays a crucial role in hadron physics. It represents a fundamental building block of the low-energy QCD dynamics and is subject to several resonance excitations. This work studies the p--π± dynamics using femtoscopic correlations in high-multiplicity pp collisions at s=13 TeV measured by ALICE at the LHC. As the final-state interaction between protons and pions is well constrained by scattering experiments and the study of pionic hydrogen, the results give access to information on the particle-emitting source in pp collisions using the femtoscopy methods. The scaling of the source size of primordial protons and pions against their pair transverse mass is extracted. The results are compared with the source sizes studied with p–p, p--K+, and π±–π± pairs by ALICE in the same collision system and are found to be in agreement for the different particle pairs. This reinforces recent findings by ALICE of a common emission source for all hadron-pairs in pp collisions at LHC energies. Furthermore, the p--p--π± systems are studied using three-particle femtoscopy in pp collisions at s=13 TeV. The presence of three-body effects is analyzed utilizing the cumulant expansion method. In this formalism, the known two-body interactions are subtracted in order to isolate the three-body effects. For both, p--p--π+ and p--p--π-, a non-zero cumulant is found, indicating effects beyond pairwise interactions. These results give information on the coupling of the pion to multiple nucleons.",

author = "ALICE Collaboration and N. Zurlo and Zugravel, \{S. C.\} and Y. Zhu and S. Zhu and J. Zhu and Y. Zhou and D. Zhou and Y. Zhi and V. Zherebchevskii and M. Zhao and Z. Zhang and Y. Zhang and X. Zhang and S. Zhang and M. Zhang and M. Zhang and L. Zhang and C. Zhang and B. Zhang and M. Zhalov and N. Zaviyalov and P. Z{\'a}vada and A. Zarochentsev and N. Zardoshti and F. Zanone and C. Zampolli and V. Zaccolo and A. Yuncu and S. Yuan and H. Yu and Yoon, \{J. H.\} and Yoo, \{I. K.\} and Z. Yin and J. Yi and Yeats, \{E. R.\} and S. Yano and S. Yang and Y. Yamaguchi and Yadav, \{A. K.\} and A. Yadav and R. Xu and Z. Xiong and Y. Wu and W. Wu and Wright, \{J. R.\} and M. Winn and Nicolas Schmidt and Jo Schambach and \{Read Jr\}, Kenneth and F. Bock",

note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} CERN for the benefit of the ALICE Collaboration 2025.",

year = "2025",

month = aug,

doi = "10.1140/epja/s10050-025-01615-4",

language = "English",

volume = "61",

journal = "European Physical Journal A",

issn = "1434-6001",

publisher = "Springer",

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T1 - Investigating the p--π± and p--p--π± dynamics with femtoscopy in pp collisions at s=13 TeV

AU - ALICE Collaboration

AU - Zurlo, N.

AU - Zugravel, S. C.

AU - Zhu, Y.

AU - Zhu, S.

AU - Zhu, J.

AU - Zhou, Y.

AU - Zhou, D.

AU - Zhi, Y.

AU - Zherebchevskii, V.

AU - Zhao, M.

AU - Zhang, Z.

AU - Zhang, Y.

AU - Zhang, X.

AU - Zhang, S.

AU - Zhang, M.

AU - Zhang, L.

AU - Zhang, C.

AU - Zhang, B.

AU - Zhalov, M.

AU - Zaviyalov, N.

AU - Závada, P.

AU - Zarochentsev, A.

AU - Zardoshti, N.

AU - Zanone, F.

AU - Zampolli, C.

AU - Zaccolo, V.

AU - Yuncu, A.

AU - Yuan, S.

AU - Yu, H.

AU - Yoon, J. H.

AU - Yoo, I. K.

AU - Yin, Z.

AU - Yi, J.

AU - Yeats, E. R.

AU - Yano, S.

AU - Yang, S.

AU - Yamaguchi, Y.

AU - Yadav, A. K.

AU - Yadav, A.

AU - Xu, R.

AU - Xiong, Z.

AU - Wu, Y.

AU - Wu, W.

AU - Wright, J. R.

AU - Winn, M.

AU - Schmidt, Nicolas

AU - Schambach, Jo

AU - Read Jr, Kenneth

AU - Bock, F.

PY - 2025/8

Y1 - 2025/8

N2 - The interaction between pions and nucleons plays a crucial role in hadron physics. It represents a fundamental building block of the low-energy QCD dynamics and is subject to several resonance excitations. This work studies the p--π± dynamics using femtoscopic correlations in high-multiplicity pp collisions at s=13 TeV measured by ALICE at the LHC. As the final-state interaction between protons and pions is well constrained by scattering experiments and the study of pionic hydrogen, the results give access to information on the particle-emitting source in pp collisions using the femtoscopy methods. The scaling of the source size of primordial protons and pions against their pair transverse mass is extracted. The results are compared with the source sizes studied with p–p, p--K+, and π±–π± pairs by ALICE in the same collision system and are found to be in agreement for the different particle pairs. This reinforces recent findings by ALICE of a common emission source for all hadron-pairs in pp collisions at LHC energies. Furthermore, the p--p--π± systems are studied using three-particle femtoscopy in pp collisions at s=13 TeV. The presence of three-body effects is analyzed utilizing the cumulant expansion method. In this formalism, the known two-body interactions are subtracted in order to isolate the three-body effects. For both, p--p--π+ and p--p--π-, a non-zero cumulant is found, indicating effects beyond pairwise interactions. These results give information on the coupling of the pion to multiple nucleons.

AB - The interaction between pions and nucleons plays a crucial role in hadron physics. It represents a fundamental building block of the low-energy QCD dynamics and is subject to several resonance excitations. This work studies the p--π± dynamics using femtoscopic correlations in high-multiplicity pp collisions at s=13 TeV measured by ALICE at the LHC. As the final-state interaction between protons and pions is well constrained by scattering experiments and the study of pionic hydrogen, the results give access to information on the particle-emitting source in pp collisions using the femtoscopy methods. The scaling of the source size of primordial protons and pions against their pair transverse mass is extracted. The results are compared with the source sizes studied with p–p, p--K+, and π±–π± pairs by ALICE in the same collision system and are found to be in agreement for the different particle pairs. This reinforces recent findings by ALICE of a common emission source for all hadron-pairs in pp collisions at LHC energies. Furthermore, the p--p--π± systems are studied using three-particle femtoscopy in pp collisions at s=13 TeV. The presence of three-body effects is analyzed utilizing the cumulant expansion method. In this formalism, the known two-body interactions are subtracted in order to isolate the three-body effects. For both, p--p--π+ and p--p--π-, a non-zero cumulant is found, indicating effects beyond pairwise interactions. These results give information on the coupling of the pion to multiple nucleons.

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105016337433

U2 - 10.1140/epja/s10050-025-01615-4

DO - 10.1140/epja/s10050-025-01615-4

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:105016337433

SN - 1434-6001

VL - 61

JO - European Physical Journal A

JF - European Physical Journal A

IS - 8

M1 - 194

ER -

Investigating the p--π± and p--p--π± dynamics with femtoscopy in pp collisions at s=13 TeV

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