Experimental Evidence for an Attractive p-φ Interaction

作者：Acharya, S.; Adamova, D.; Adler, A.; Adolfsson, J.; Rinella, G. Aglieri; Agnello, M.; Agrawal, N.; Ahammed, Z.; Ahmad, S.; Ahn, S. U.; Ahuja, I; Akbar, Z.; Akindinov, A.; Al-Turany, M.; Alam, S. N.; Aleksandrov, D.; Alessandro, B.; Alfanda, H. M.; Molina, R. Alfaro; Ali, B.; Ali, Y.; Alici, A.; Alizadehvandchali, N.; Alkin, A.; Alme, J.; Alt, T.; Altenkamper, L.; Altsybeev, I; Anaam, M. N.; Andrei, C.; Andreou, D.; Andronic, A.; Angeletti, M.; Anguelov, V; Antinori, F.; Antonioli, P.; Anuj, C.

来源：Physical Review Letters, 2021, 127(17): 172301.

DOI：10.1103/PhysRevLett.127.172301

• QCD SUM-RULES
• VECTOR-MESONS
• COLLISIONS
• PARTICLES
• PHOTOPRODUCTION

This Letter presents the first experimental evidence of the attractive strong interaction between a proton and a phi meson. The result is obtained from two-particle correlations of combined p-phi circle plus (p) over bar-phi pairs measured in high-multiplicity pp collisions at root s = 13 TeV by the ALICE Collaboration. The spin-averaged scattering length and effective range of the p-phi interaction are extracted from the fully corrected correlation function employing the Lednicky-Lyuboshits approach. In particular, the imaginary part of the scattering length vanishes within uncertainties, indicating that inelastic processes do not play a prominent role for the p-phi interaction. These data demonstrate that the interaction is dominated by elastic p-phi scattering. Furthermore, an analysis employing phenomenological Gaussian-and Yukawa-type potentials is conducted. Under the assumption of the latter, the N-phi coupling constant is found to be g(N-phi) = 0.14 +/- 0.03(stat) +/- 0.02(syst). This work provides valuable experimental input to accomplish a self-consistent description of the N-phi interaction, which is particularly relevant for the more fundamental studies on partial restoration of chiral symmetry in nuclear medium.