Residual correlation in two-proton interferometry from lambda-proton strong interactions

Abstract

We investigate the residual effect of lambda-proton strong interactions in pp correlations with one proton from lambda decays. It is found that the residual correlation is about 10% of the lambda-proton correlation strength, and has a broad distribution centered around q~40 MeV/c. The residual correlation cannot explain the observed structure on the tail of the recently measured pp correlation function in central Pb+Pb collisions by NA49 at the SPS.