One-dimensional charged kaon femtoscopy in p-Pb collisions at s NN = 5.02 TeV

Abstract

The correlations of identical charged kaons were measured in $p$-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{{s}_{\mathit{NN}}}=5.02$ TeV by the ALICE experiment at the LHC. The femtoscopic invariant radii and correlation strengths were extracted from one-dimensional kaon correlation functions and were compared with those obtained in $pp$ and Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s}=7$ TeV and $\sqrt{{s}_{\mathit{NN}}}=2.76$ TeV, respectively. The presented results also complement the identical-pion femtoscopic data published by the ALICE collaboration. The extracted radii increase with increasing charged-particle multiplicity and decrease with increasing pair transverse momentum. At comparable multiplicities, the radii measured in $p$-Pb collisions are found to be close to those observed in $pp$ collisions. The obtained femtoscopic parameters are reproduced by the EPOS 3 hadronic interaction model and disfavor models with large initial size or strong collective expansion at low multiplicities.