Λpinteraction Studied Via Femtoscopy Inp+nbreactions Ats

We report on the first measurement of $p\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}$ and $pp$ correlations via the femtoscopy method in $p$ + Nb reactions at $\sqrt{{s}_{\mathit{NN}}}=3.18\phantom{\rule{0.28em}{0ex}}\mathrm{GeV}$, studied with the High Acceptance Di-Electron Spectrometer (HADES). By comparing the experimental correlation function to model calculations, a source size for $pp$ pairs of ${r}_{0,pp}=2.02\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.01{(\mathrm{stat})}_{\ensuremath{-}0.12}^{+0.11}(\mathrm{sys})\phantom{\rule{0.28em}{0ex}}\mathrm{fm}$ and a slightly smaller value for $p\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}$ pairs of ${r}_{0,\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}p}=1.62\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.02{(\mathrm{stat})}_{\ensuremath{-}0.08}^{+0.19}(\mathrm{sys})\phantom{\rule{0.28em}{0ex}}\mathrm{fm}$ are extracted. Using the geometrical extent of the particle-emitting region, determined experimentally with $pp$ correlations as reference together with a source function from a transport model, it is possible to study different sets of scattering parameters. The $p\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}$ correlation is proven to be sensitive to predicted scattering length values from chiral effective field theory. We demonstrate that the femtoscopy technique can be used as a valid alternative to the analysis of scattering data to study the hyperon-nucleon interaction.