Topological studies of charged particle production and search for jet quenching effects in small collision systems with ALICE

TL;DR

This paper investigates the collective phenomena in small collision systems at the LHC by analyzing charged particle production and searching for jet quenching effects using the relative transverse activity classifier across different collision types.

Contribution

It introduces the use of the $R_{ m{T}}$ classifier to distinguish soft and hard particle production and studies its dependence on system size in various collision systems.

Findings

Charged particle production varies with system size and $R_{ m{T}}$.

Evidence of collectivity in small systems like pp and p-Pb.

No definitive jet quenching effects observed in the studied systems.

Abstract

Results for high multiplicity pp and p-Pb collisions at the LHC have revealed that these small collision systems exhibit features of collectivity. To understand the origin of these unexpected phenomena, the relative transverse activity classifier ($R_{\rm{T}}$) can be exploited as a tool to disentangle soft and hard particle production, by studying the yield of charged particles in different topological regions associated with transverse momentum trigger particles. This allows to study system size dependence of charged particle production of different origins and in particular search for jet-quenching effects. Here, results on the system size and $R_{\rm{T}}$ dependence of charged particle production in pp, p-Pb and Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}$ = 5.02 TeV are presented.