Multiple Parton Interactions with ALICE: from pp to p-Pb

The study of multiplicity dependent di-hadron angular correlations allows us to assess the contribution of multiple-parton interactions to particle production. We will review these measurements in pp and p-Pb collisions with the ALICE detector at the LHC and discuss the results in the context of centrality determination and other multiplicity dependent observables in p-Pb.Comment: 9 pages, 10 figures; Invited talk presented at the 30th Winter Workshop on Nuclear Dynamics (WWND 2014), Galveston, Texas, USA, April 6-12, 201

p-Pb Results from ALICE with an Emphasis on Centrality Determination

New ALICE results concerning particle production at low and intermediate transverse momenta in p-Pb collisions at a centre of mass energy of 5.02 TeV per nucleon pair are briefly discussed. Emphasis is given to the determination of centrality in p-Pb and their implications for binary scaling of hard processes.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, talk given at Strangeness in Quark Matter SQM 2013, 22nd - 27th July 2013 Birmingham, United Kingdo

Results on Jet Spectra and Structure from ALICE

Full jet reconstruction in ALICE uses the combined information from charged and neutral particles. Essentially all jet constituents can be measured with large efficiency down to very low transverse momenta (pT > 150 MeV/c). This has the advantage to introduce a minimum bias on the jet fragmentation, in particular for low jet momenta and in the presence of quenching. In this article, we present preliminary results from reconstruction of charged jets in Pb-Pb collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 2.76 TeV. The inclusive charged jet spectrum, the jet nuclear modification factors (R_AA, R_CP), the ratio of spectra measured with different resolution parameters and hadron-jet correlations are discussed. For pp data at the same center of mass energy, the inclusive spectrum of fully reconstructed jets and its resolution parameter dependence are reported.Comment: 8 pages, 11 figures; to be published in the Proceedings of Quark Matter 201

Simulation in ALICE

ALICE, the experiment dedicated to the study of heavy ion collisions at the LHC, uses an object-oriented framework for simulation, reconstruction and analysis (AliRoot) based on ROOT. Here, we describe the general ALICE simulation strategy and those components of the framework related to simulation. Two main requirements have driven the development of the simulation components. First, the possibility to run different transport codes with the same user code for geometry and detector response has led to the development of the Virtual Monte Carlo concept. Second, simulation has to provide tools to efficiently study events ranging from low-multiplicity pp collisions to Pb-Pb collisions with up to 80000 primary particles per event. This has led to the development of a variety of collaborating generator classes and specific classes for event merging.Comment: Talk from the 2003 Computing in High Energy and Nuclear Physics (CHEP03), La Jolla, Ca, USA, March 2003, 6 pages, LaTeX, 5 eps figures. PSN TUMT00

Absence of jet quenching in peripheral nucleus-nucleus collisions

Medium effects on the production of high-$p_{\rm T}$ particles in nucleus-nucleus (AA) collisions are generally quantified by the nuclear modification factor ($R_{\rm AA}$), defined to be unity in absence of nuclear effects. Modeling particle production including a nucleon-nucleon impact parameter dependence, we demonstrate that $R_{\rm AA}$ at midrapidity in peripheral AA collisions can be significantly affected by event selection and geometry biases. Even without jet quenching and shadowing, these biases cause an apparent suppression for $R_{\rm AA}$ in peripheral collisions, and are relevant for all types of hard probes and all collision energies. Our studies indicate that calculations of jet quenching in peripheral AA collisions should account for the biases, or else they will overestimate the relevance of parton energy loss. Similarly, expectations of parton energy loss in light-heavy collision systems based on comparison with apparent suppression seen in peripheral $R_{\rm AA}$ should be revised. Our interpretation of the peripheral $R_{\rm AA}$ data would unify observations for lighter collision systems or lower energies where significant values of elliptic flow are observed despite the absence of strong jet quenching.Comment: 13 pages, 4 captioned figures (the 4th is not in the published version); our code for HG-PYTHIA was ported in 2019 by Austin Baty to run on top of a default PYTHIA installation and can be found at https://github.com/abaty/HGPythi

Structure for the breathing mode of the nucleon from high energy p-p scattering

Spectra of p-p and pi-p scattering at beam momenta between 6 and 30 GeV/c have been reanalysed. These show strong excitation of N* resonances, the strongest one corresponding to the "scalar" P11 excitation (breathing mode) at m_o= 1400+-10 MeV with Gamma= 200+-25 MeV. The result of a strong scalar excitation is supported by a large longitudinal amplitude S_1/2 extracted from e-p scattering. From exclusive data on p+p=>p p pi+ pi- a large 2pi-N decay branch for the P_11 resonance of B_2pi= 75+-20 % has been extracted. The differential cross sections were described in a double folding approach, assuming multi-gluon exchange as the dominant part of the effective interaction between the constituents of projectile and target. First, the parameters of the interaction were fitted to elastic scattering; then with this interaction the inelastic cross sections were described in the distorted wave Born approximation. A good description of the data requires a surface peaked transition density, quite different from that of a pure radial mode. In contrast, the electron scattering amplitude S_1/2 is quite well described by a breathing mode transition density with radial node. This large difference between charge and matter transition density suggests, that in p-p scattering the coupling to the multi-gluon field is much more important than the coupling to the valence quarks. A multi-gluon (or sea-quark) transition density is derived, which shows also breathing, indicating a rather complex multi-quark structure of N and N* including multi-glue (or q^2n qbar ^-2n) creation out of the g.s. vacuum.Comment: 18 pages with 7 figure