The f₀ (980) is a light scalar meson whose internal structure remains under debate and investigation. Assuming that the f₀ (980) is a K K molecule that can only survive at the kinetic freeze-out of the evolving bulk matter, we implement the coalescence model to study its transverse momentum (pT) spectra and elliptic flow (v₂) in high-multiplicity p-Pb collisions at s₍₍=5. 02 TeV. Using the well-tuned kaon phase-space distributions from the Hydro-Coal-Frag model, our KK coalescence calculations with reasonable values for the f₀ (980) radius successfully reproduce the elliptic flow measured by CMS over the range 0 < pₓ < 12 GeV and also agree with the pT-spectra from ALICE. These results in heavy ion collisions are consistent with the K K molecular picture of the f₀ (980). We also find that the number-of-constituent scaling of v₂ for the f₀ (980) is violated in p-Pb collisions at the LHC because most f₀ (980) are produced from the coalescence of kaons that have different momenta. Our study demonstrates the necessity of realistic coalescence model calculations and also explains why the CMS interpretation of the f₀ (980) as an ordinary q q meson is no longer valid by interpreting the measured v₂ with a simple scaling formula based on the assumption of equal momentum coalescence. The investigation also provides a novel way to explore the internal structure of light exotic hadrons that can be abundantly produced in relativistic heavy and/or light ion collisions.
Wang et al. (Wed,) studied this question.
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