2007/03/13 by A. Akindinov, A. Alici, P. Antonioli +50 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Dust and Plasma Wave Phenomena #High-Energy Particle Collisions Research #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1140/epjc/s10052-007-0260-4
published as Eur.Phys.J.C50:341-352,2007 · 12 pages, 19 figures. In memory of A. Smirnitskiy
openalex publication_date 2007/03/13 · arxiv created 2007/09/11 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
In this work we explore the possibility to perform ``effective energy'' studies in very high energy collisions at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC). In particular, we focus on the possibility to measure in pp collisions the average charged multiplicity as a function of the effective energy with the ALICE experiment, using its capability to measure the energy of the leading baryons with the Zero Degree Calorimeters. Analyses of this kind have been done at lower centre--of--mass energies and have shown that, once the appropriate kinematic variables are chosen, particle production is characterized by universal properties: no matter the nature of the interacting particles, the final states have identical features. Assuming that this universality picture can be extended to \it ion--ion collisions, as suggested by recent results from RHIC experiments, a novel approach based on the scaling hypothesis for limiting fragmentation has been used to derive the expected charged event multiplicity in AA interactions at LHC. This leads to scenarios where the multiplicity is significantly lower compared to most of the predictions from the models currently used to describe high energy AA collisions. A mean charged multiplicity of about 1000-2000 per rapidity unit (at η∼ 0) is expected for the most central Pb-Pb collisions at √sNN = 5.5 TeV.