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Long-range azimuthal correlations for partially coherent pion emission in proton-proton collisions

In this paper, we investigate the influence of coherent pion emission on long-range azimuthal correlations in relativistic proton-proton collisions. We study the pion momentum distribution for a coherent source with both transverse and Bjorken longitudinal expansions, and calculate the two-particle correlation function $C(Δη,Δϕ)$. A "ridge" structure is observed in the correlation function $C(Δη,Δϕ)$ of the coherent pion emission, whether the coherent source is expanding or static. The onset of this long-range azimuthal correlation can be traced back to the asymmetric initial transverse profile of the coherent source, owing to the interference in coherent emission. We further construct a partially coherent pion-emitting source by incorporating a chaotic emission component. From the experimental data of the two-pion Hanbury-Brown-Twiss correlations in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}\!=\!7\,$TeV, we extract a coherent fraction of pion emission, which increases with increasing charged-particle multiplicity, as an input of the partially coherent source model. The ridge structure is observed in the correlation function $C(Δη,Δϕ)$ for the partially coherent source. The correlation becomes stronger at higher multiplicities because of the larger degrees of coherence. The results in this work are meaningful for fully understanding the collectivity in the small system of pp collisions.