Extension of Glauber-like model for Proton-Proton collisions using anisotropic and inhomogeneous density profile

TL;DR

This paper extends the Glauber model with anisotropic, inhomogeneous proton density profiles to better understand high-multiplicity proton-proton collisions at LHC energies, revealing potential medium formation and collective effects.

Contribution

It introduces a modified Glauber model with realistic proton density profiles to analyze $pp$ collisions, providing new insights into collision geometry and particle production.

Findings

Model accurately reproduces charged particle multiplicity distributions.

Estimates impact parameter, $N_{coll}$, and $N_{part}$ at various multiplicities.

Introduces $R_{pp}$, a nuclear modification-like factor for $pp$ collisions.

Abstract

Results from proton-proton ($pp$) collisions have routinely been used as a baseline to analyze and understand the production of QCD matter expected to be produced in nuclear collisions. But recent studies of small systems formed in $pp$ collisions at the LHC energies hint at the possibility of producing medium with collective behavior. Therefore, results from $pp$ collisions required more careful investigation to understand whether QCD matter is produced in high multiplicity $pp$ collisions. With this motivation, the Glauber model traditionally used to study the heavy-ion collision dynamics at high energy is applied here to understand the dynamics of $pp$ collisions. We have used anisotropic and inhomogeneous quark/gluon-based proton density profile, a realistic picture obtained from deep inelastic scattering results and this model explains the charged particle multiplicity distribution of $pp$ collisions at LHC energies very well. Collision geometric properties like impact parameter and mean number of binary collisions ($\langle N_{coll} \rangle$), mean number of participants ($\langle N_{part} \rangle$) at different multiplicities are determined for $pp$ collisions. We further used these collision geometric properties to estimate average charged-particle pseudorapidity density ($\langle dN_{ch}/d\eta \rangle$) and found it to be comparable with the experimental results. Knowing $\langle N_{coll} \rangle$, we have obtained nuclear modification-like factor ($R_{pp}$) in $pp$ collisions which has not been done before to the best of our knowledge.