Strange Particle Production Mechanisms in Proton-Proton Collisions at RHIC

Abstract

We present data on strange particle production in elementary proton-proton collisions at RHIC energies. Comparison to leading order and next-to-leading order (NLO) calculations shows that the fragmentation process is flavor dependent and that higherorder corrections are needed to describe all spectra, in particular at these collision energies, which are modest compared to the Tevatron energies. A model (EPOS) which takes into account multiple scattering between projectile constituents seems to describe the data best.