"From Hadron Correlations at the LHC to Neutron Star Matter in the Cosmos"

Abstract:

Femtoscopy is a powerful technique for studying final-state interactions between hadrons, employing pairwise correlations to analyze the emission source and final-state interactions of particles with low relative momentum. The Koonin-Pratt relation is commonly used to relate the measurable correlation function to the emission source and wavefunction of the pair. In the past decade, the ALICE Collaboration demonstrated the possibility of utilizing a common hadron emission source in small collision systems, constrained by hadron pairs with known interactions, such as pp, to study with high precision the interaction of pairs with unknown or poorly constrained strong potentials.

This seminar will focus on the use of effective interaction potentials as a proxy to extract the scattering parameters of the investigated two-particle correlation function. A particular highlight is the extraction of proton-Λ scattering parameters, allowing for better-constrained theoretical modeling of the nuclear equation of state and, consequently, the mass-radius relation of neutron stars. The seminar will conclude with an overview of ongoing activities aiming to provide a standardized procedure for extracting scattering parameters from measured correlation functions.