Correlation of heavy-flavour hadron production and charged-particle multiplicity in pp collisions measured by ALICE

TL;DR

This paper investigates how heavy-flavour hadron production correlates with charged-particle multiplicity in proton-proton collisions at various energies, providing insights into production mechanisms and testing theoretical models.

Contribution

It presents new measurements of heavy-flavour yields as a function of multiplicity at different energies, enhancing understanding of event activity effects and model validation.

Findings

Heavy-flavour yields increase with charged-particle multiplicity.

Results vary with collision energy, showing energy dependence.

Data compare favorably with certain theoretical models.

Abstract

Heavy-flavour (HF) quarks, i.e. charm and beauty, are produced in the early stages of ultra-relativistic collisions via hard scattering processes. The measurement of heavy flavour as a function of charged-particle multiplicity not only provides information on how the production mechanisms are influenced by the event activity, but can also be considered as a tool to test the role of multiple parton interactions. Furthermore, charged-particle multiplicity studies are essential for reference measurements, to tune theoretical models and to provide information on the global characteristics of events. In ALICE, charged-particle multiplicity and heavy-flavour production in the hadronic and electronic decay channels are measured at central rapidity while HF-decay muons and $\rm J/\psi \rightarrow \mu^{+}\mu^{-}$ are measured at forward rapidity. In this contribution, results will be presented on relative $\rm J/\psi$, average D-mesons and leptons from HF hadron decay yields as a function of charged-particle multiplicity in proton-proton (pp) collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 5.02, 7, 8 and 13 TeV. These results will also be compared to theoretical model calculations.