Charmonium suppression in ultra-relativistic proton-proton collisions at LHC energies: A hint for QGP in small systems

TL;DR

This study investigates charmonium suppression in high-energy proton-proton collisions, suggesting potential formation of quark-gluon plasma even in small systems at LHC energies.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive model including multiple suppression and regeneration mechanisms to analyze charmonium behavior in $pp$ collisions at various energies.

Findings

Net charmonium suppression observed at high multiplicities

Indications of quark-gluon plasma formation in small systems

Suppression varies with event multiplicity and transverse momentum

Abstract

Proton-proton ($pp$) collision has been considered as a baseline to study the system produced in relativistic heavy-ion (AA) collisions with the basic assumption that no thermal medium is formed in $pp$ collisions. This warrants a cautious analysis of the system produced in $pp$ collisions at relativistic energies.In this work we investigate the charmonium suppression in $pp$ collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 5.02, 7$ and $13$ TeV energies. Further, charmonium suppression has been studied for various event multiplicities and transverse momenta by including the mechanisms of color screening, gluonic dissociation, collisional damping along with regeneration due to correlated $c\bar c$ pairs. Here we obtain a net suppression of charmonia at high-multiplicity events indicating the possibility of the formation of quark-gluon plasma in $pp$ collisions.