Solving the inverse source problem in femtoscopy with a toy model*

Abstract Hadron-hadron interactions, being nonperturbative in nature, play a significant role in addressing phenomenological questions in particle physics. Femtoscopy is a powerful tool in heavy-ion collision experiments, enabling the extraction of hadron-hadron interactions via momentum-correlation functions (CFs). These CFs are typically expressed as a convolution of source functions and hadron-hadron wave functions, with the latter encoding information about the interactions. However, source functions remain poorly constrained and are commonly approximated by a Gaussian form. Reconstructing source functions from experimental correlation data constitutes an "inverse problem." To address this, we propose a toy model based on Tikhonov regularization. Using a square-well potential with four distinct strengths, we calculate the CFs for inputs of single Gaussian source functions and mixed Gaussian source functions. The resulting CFs are then used to reconstruct the source functions via Tikhonov regularization. Our results show that the Gaussian source function can be successfully reconstructed, highlighting the potential of this approach for extracting realistic source functions from hadron pairs of interest.