Measurement of neutral strange particle production in the underlying event in proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s)=7 TeV

Measurements are presented of the production of primary K0 S and particles in proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV in the region transverse to the leading charged-particle jet in each event. The average multiplicity and average scalar transverse momentum sum of K0 S and particles measured at pseudorapidities jj < 2 rise with increasing charged-particle jet pT in the range 1–10 GeV=c and saturate in the region 10–50 GeV=c. The rise and saturation of the strange-particle yields and transverse momentum sums in the underlying event are similar to those observed for inclusive charged particles, which confirms the impact-parameter picture of multiple parton interactions. The results are compared to recent tunes of the PYTHIA Monte Carlo event generator. The PYTHIA simulations underestimate the data by 15%–30% for K0 S mesons and by about 50% for baryons, a deficit similar to that observed for the inclusive strange-particle production in non-single-diffractive proton-proton collisions. The constant strange- to charged-particle activity ratios with respect to the leading jet pT and similar trends for mesons and baryons indicate that the multiparton-interaction dynamics is decoupled from parton hadronization, which occurs at a later stage.