Speaker
Description
The observation of significant Λ hyperon transverse polarization, i.e. the polarization in the direction transverse to the Λ production plane, in inclusive p+p and p+A collisions using unpolarized beams triggered theoretical efforts to describe this effect. Numerous models have been proposed to explain the origin of hyperon polarization. Several models have successfully explained the behavior of some hyperons, but none have been able to account for the behavior of the entire hyperon family.
NA61/SHINE is a fixed-target experiment with large acceptance and high particle identification capabilities at the CERN SPS. The first feasibility studies have shown that the properties of the magnetic field used by NA61/SHINE, together with high statistics of collected p+p collisions at beam momentum 158 GeV/c, offer possibilities to study Λ polarization in several bins of $p_\text{T}$ and $x_\text{F}$. This work will contain a description of the methodology of our studies and will present preliminary results on Λ transverse polarization in Feynman-x $x_\text{F} \in$ (-0.3,0.2) and $p_\text{T} \in$ (0.2,1.2) GeV/c compared with results from other experiments and predictions of DeGrand - Miettinen model.
