Measurements of $${\Xi }{^-} $$Ξ- and $$\overline{\Xi }{^+} $$Ξ¯+ production in proton–proton interactions at $$\sqrt{s_{NN}}$$sNN = 17.3 $$\hbox {Ge}\hbox {V}$$Ge in the NA61/SHINE experiment

The production of $$\Xi (1321)^{-}$$ and $$\overline{\Xi }(1321)^{+}$$ hyperons in inelastic p+p interactions is studied in a fixed target experiment at a beam momentum of 158  $$\hbox {Ge}\hbox {V}\!/\!c$$ . Double differential distributions in rapidity $${y}$$ and transverse momentum $$p_{T}$$ are obtained from a sample of 33M inelastic events. They allow to extrapolate the spectra to full phase space and to determine the mean multiplicity of both $${\Xi }{^-} $$ and $$\overline{\Xi }{^+} $$ . The rapidity and transverse momentum spectra are compared to transport model predictions. The $${\Xi }{^-} $$ mean multiplicity in inelastic p+p interactions at 158  $$\hbox {Ge}\hbox {V}\!/\!c$$ is used to quantify the strangeness enhancement in A+A collisions at the same centre-of-mass energy per nucleon pair.