Kaon-proton femtoscopy in Pb-Pb collisions with ALICE at the LHC

The femtoscopic analysis of particles formed during heavy-ion collisions allows for estimation of space-time parameters describing the particle-emitting source. In addition, investigation of the correlation function leads to determination of the parameters describing interactions between two particles. The presented work concerns the femtoscopic study of interactions between charged kaons and protons measured by the ALICE experiment in Pb–Pb collisions with energy at the center of mass √sNN = 5.02 TeV. One of the sources of interactions between particles is the strong force, which is poorly known for K−p and K+ p pairs. The presented analysis provides a unique way of estimating the scattering parameters that describe the strong force through the correlation function study. The analysis also allows to determine the femtoscopic radii, which describe the observed correlations at low relative momentum of both particles in Pb–Pb collisions.