Acceptance Studies of hadron-Λ Correlations for the ALICE Experiment, Using PYTHIA Monte Carlo pp Events

The conditions necessary to produce a deconfined state of quarks and gluons are met in high energy heavy-ion collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). This state of matter, the quark-gluon plasma (QGP), is thought to have filled the universe in the first few microseconds after the Big Bang. The ALICE experiment measures the final state particles resulting from these ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions, enabling measurements of the QGP. One important signature of QGP formation is strangeness enhancement: the increased production of strange quarks. We can better understand strangeness production by studying hard and soft scatterings with 2D correlations of hadrons and Λ hyperons. In this work, I study the effect of detector acceptance on hadron-Λ correlations, assessing whether detector geometry impacts these correlations. To this end, I investigate the effect of a single-particle pseudorapidity cut on hadron-Λ and hadron-hadron correlations, which I construct from proton-proton collisions simulated in PYTHIA at √s =14 TeV. I compare relative yields in the away-side peaks of hadron-hadron and hadron-Λ correlations for various kinematic cuts. For these same cuts and correlations, I compare the shapes of the corresponding Δη distributions and widths of the Δφ away-side peaks. I explain how these measurements relate to possible systematic errors associated with the ALICE experiment's acceptance.