Eur. Phys. J. Plus (2022) 137: 255
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-022-02489-x

Regular Article

The production of $\varphi$ mesons at SPS, RHIC and LHC energies

¹ COMSATS University Islamabad Campus, Park Road Chak Shahzad, 4000, Islamabad, Pakistan
² Key Laboratory of Particle Physics and Particle Irradiation (MOE), Institute of Frontier and Interdisciplinary Science, Shandong University (Qingdao), 2666237, Qingdao, China

^a uzma.tabassam@comsats.edu.pk

Received: 8 November 2021
Accepted: 14 February 2022
Published online: 22 February 2022

Abstract

The $\varphi$ vector meson, lightest bound state of strange and anti-strange quarks, is considered as a good probe for the study of QCD matter formed in heavy-ion collisions. We have reported the transverse momentum ($p_T$) and rapidity (y) distributions of $\varphi$ mesons in pp collisions at SPS, LHC and RHIC energies in the kinematic interval of $0<p_T<1.5GeV/c$ over a wide rapidity region. The results of Monte Carlo Simulations using PYTHIA8 event generator are compared to NA61/SHINE, ALICE and STAR experimental data. The PYTHIA8 model is used with default tune CR0 as well as with color reconnection tune CR1. The PYTHIA8 default tune (CR0) is MPI based while CR1 tune is QCD based. CR0 provides a good description of the ALICE data, while CR1 tune explains the ALICE data better than CR0. Some deviations are observed in $p_T$ spectra. The observed deviations in the distributions are due to the kinematics involved in the model. In case of CR0, the deviations are due to the multiparton interactions and for CR1 tune, the non-perturbative QCD effects are more dominant which are due to parton fragmentation as discussed in Lund string model used in PYTHIA8. CR0 tune of PYTHIA describes ALICE data very well but cannot explain the STAR experimental data. The ratio of Monte Carlo to experiment data shows that the deviations are within the statistical uncertainty values.