Single string structure and multiple string interaction effect on strange particle production in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}=7$ TeV

Abstract

We present a systematic study on the strange particle production at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in proton-proton (pp) collisions at $\sqrt{s}=$ 7 TeV based on PACIAE simulations. Two different mechanisms accounting for single string structure variations and multiple string interactions are implemented in the simulations. These modifications give rise to increased effective string tension in the Lund fragmentation model and generate more strange particles in the hadronic final state. By comparing the results with a wealth of the LHC data, it is turned out that the inclusion of variable effective string tension is capable to reach an improved agreement between theory and experiment, especially on the recently observed multiplicity dependence of strangeness enhancement in pp collisions. This approach provides us a new method to understand the microscopic picture of the novel high multiplicity pp events collected at the LHC in the string fragmentation framework.