Charged particle production in $pp$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}$=8, 7 and 2.76 TeV at the LHC -- a case study

TL;DR

This study analyzes charged-particle multiplicity distributions in proton-proton collisions at multiple LHC energies using the shifted Gompertz distribution, providing new insights into particle production mechanisms.

Contribution

It introduces a modified shifted Gompertz distribution to better describe multiplicity data, distinguishing between inelastic and non-single-diffractive events across pseudorapidity windows.

Findings

Distribution fits well across different energies and event classes

Provides moments and detailed comparison with LHC data

Enhances understanding of particle production processes

Abstract

We analyse the charged${\text -}$particle multiplicity distributions measured by the ALICE experiment, over a wide pseudorapidity range, for $pp$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}$=8,\,7\,and\, 2.76~TeV at the LHC.~The analysis offers an understanding of particle production in high energy collisions in the purview of a new distribution, the shifted Gompertz distribution.~Data are compared with the distribution and moments of the distributions are calculated.~A modified version of the distribution is also proposed and used to improve the description of the data consisting of two different event classes; the inelastic and the non${\text -}$single${\text -}$diffractive and their subsets in different windows of pseudorapidity, $\eta$.~The distribution used to analyse the data has a wide range of applicability to processes in different fields and complements the analysis done by the ALICE collaboration in terms of various LHC event generators and IP-Glasma calculations.