Multiplicity dependence of the entropy and heat capacity for pp collisions at LHC energies

TL;DR

This study examines how the entropy and heat capacity of charged particle spectra in proton-proton collisions at LHC energies depend on event multiplicity and classifier choice, highlighting potential biases in data interpretation.

Contribution

It introduces a nonextensive framework to analyze multiplicity-dependent entropy and heat capacity, revealing biases introduced by different event classifiers.

Findings

Entropy and heat capacity vary with multiplicity and classifier region.

Different event triggers lead to distinct responses in entropy and heat capacity.

Event selection biases can affect the interpretation of particle production observables.

Abstract

We investigate the multiplicity dependence of the transverse momentum spectrum of the charged particle production in pp collisions at LHC energies. To this end, we consider the experimental data sets classified with different multiplicity estimators, defined by the ALICE Collaboration, that are analyzed within the framework of nonextensive particle production. We compute the variance, kurtosis, Shannon entropy, and heat capacity of the $p_T$ spectrum to study the hardening process as a function of the multiplicity and temperature under the different event classifiers. We found that both the Shannon entropy and the heat capacity show different responses for the triggers at the forward-backward and midrapidity regions. We emphasize that the selection of event biases may induce different responses in estimating theoretical and phenomenological observables that could lead to misleading conclusions.