Measurement of the Sensitivity of Two-Particle Correlations in $pp$ Collisions to the Presence of Hard Scatterings

Measurements of two-particle correlations in $pp$ collisions show the presence of long-range correlations along $\Delta\eta$ that are similar to those seen in heavy-ion collisions. The similarity between the $pp$ and heavy-ion measurements raises the possibility that a tiny droplet of the QGP is produced even in $pp$ collisions. However, alternative models that attribute the correlations in $pp$ collisions to semi-hard processes can also qualitatively reproduce the measurements. Therefore, differentiating between particles produced from semi-hard processes, such as low-$p_{\mathrm{T}}$ jets, and those produced from soft interactions can help determine the origin of the correlations in $pp$ collisions. This talk presents measurements of two-particle correlations in $pp$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV with two different particle-pair selections. In the first case, tracks associated with jets are excluded from the correlation analysis. This shows that excluding tracks associated with jets does not affect the measured correlations. In the second case, correlations are measured between tracks that are constituents of jets and tracks from the underlying event, which showed that jets do not exhibit any azimuthal correlations with the underlying event. These measurements provide a further understanding of the collective signatures observed in $pp$ collisions.