Measuring K 0 SK ± interactions using pp collisions at √ s = 7 TeV

Article history: Received 27 September 2018 Received in revised form 28 November 2018 Accepted 13 December 2018 Available online 18 December 2018 Editor: L. Rolandi We present the first measurements of femtoscopic correlations between the KS and K± particles in pp collisions at √ s = 7 TeV measured by the ALICE experiment. The observed femtoscopic correlations are consistent with final-state interactions proceeding solely via the a0(980) resonance. The extracted kaon source radius and correlation strength parameters for KS K− are found to be equal within the experimental uncertainties to those for KSK+. Results of the present study are compared with those from identical-kaon femtoscopic studies also performed with pp collisions at √ s = 7 TeV by ALICE and with a KSK± measurement in Pb–Pb collisions at √ sNN = 2.76 TeV. Combined with the Pb–Pb results, our pp analysis is found to be compatible with the interpretation of the a0(980) having a tetraquark structure instead of that of a diquark. © 2018 Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Funded by SCOAP3.