Speaker
Description
The f$_0$(980) resonance was observed several years ago in $\pi\pi$ scattering experiments. Despite a long history of experimental and theoretical studies, the nature of this short-lived resonance is far from being understood and there is no agreement about its quark structure. According to different models, it has been associated with a meson, considered as a tetraquark, or as a KK molecule. In this talk we address two complementary avenues to study the nature of the f$_0$(980) resonance.
The first method exploits the excellent tracking and particle identification of the ALICE experiment to measure the differential spectra and integrated yield of the f$_0$(980) meson produced in pp and p-Pb collisions at an energy of $\sqrt{s}$ = 5 TeV. The results are discussed in the comparison with models and the properties of other hadrons. The nuclear modification factor shows hints of final-state effects in p-Pb collisions and will be presented and discussed in this perspective. The second method involves femtoscopic correlations of non-identical charged kaons (K$^+$K$^-$), studied in Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}$ = 2.76 TeV. For the analysis of the K$^+$K$^-$ correlation, a comparison of the measured data to the Lednick$\acute{\rm y}$-Luboshitz interaction model allows to extract for the first time the f$_0$(980) mass and coupling parameters. The measured width and mass of the f$_0$(980) resonance are consistent with the existing PDG data.
