Geometrical Scaling in Inelastic Inclusive Particle Production at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that charged particle distributions and inelastic cross-sections at the LHC exhibit geometrical scaling, with the saturation scale exponent aligning with deep inelastic scattering results, and explores Tsallis parametrization consistent with this scaling.

Contribution

It shows that geometrical scaling applies to inelastic pp scattering at LHC energies and finds a novel Tsallis parametrization compatible with this scaling.

Findings

Charged particle distributions exhibit geometrical scaling.

Inelastic cross-section also exhibits better scaling than multiplicities.

The saturation scale exponent matches that from HERA deep inelastic scattering.

Abstract

Analyzing recent ALICE data on inelastic pp scattering at the LHC energies we show that charged particle distributions exhibit geometrical scaling (GS). We show also that the inelastic cross-section is scaling as well and that in this case the quality of GS is better than for multiplicities. Moreover, exponent $\lambda$ characterizing the saturation scale is for the cross-section scaling compatible with the one found in deep inelastic ep scattering at HERA. Next, by parametrizing charged particles distributions by the Tsallis-like formula, we find a somewhat unexpected solution that still exhibits GS, but differs from the "standard" one where the Tsallis temperature is proportional to the saturation scale.