Yields and phase space distributions of φ -mesons emitted from p+p (minimum bias trigger), p+Pb (at various centralities) and central Pb+Pb collisions are reported ( E beam =158 A GeV). The decay φ →K + K − was used for identification. The φ / π ratio is found to increase by a factor of 3.0±0.7 from inelastic p+p to central Pb+Pb. Significant enhancement in this ratio is also observed in subclasses of p+p events (characterized by high charged-particle multiplicity) as well as in the forward hemisphere of central p+Pb collisions. In Pb+Pb no shift or significant broadening of the φ -peak is seen.
The yield of charged particles associated with high-$p_{\rm T}$ trigger particles ($8 < p_{\rm T} < 15$ GeV/$c$) is measured with the ALICE detector in Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}$ = 2.76 TeV relative to proton-proton collisions at the same energy. The conditional per-trigger yields are extracted from the narrow jet-like correlation peaks in azimuthal di-hadron correlations. In the 5% most central collisions, we observe that the yield of associated charged particles with transverse momenta $p_{\rm T}> 3$ GeV/$c$ on the away-side drops to about 60% of that observed in pp collisions, while on the near-side a moderate enhancement of 20-30% is found.
Characteristics of multi-particle production in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$=7 TeV are studied as a function of the charged-particle multiplicity, $N_{ch}$. The produced particles are separated into two classes: those belonging to jets and those belonging to the underlying event. Charged particles are measured with pseudorapidity |η|<2.4 and transverse momentum $p_T$ > 0.25 GeV/c. Jets are reconstructed from charged-particles only and required to have $p_T$ > 5 GeV/c. The distributions of jet $p_T$, average $p_T$ of charged particles belonging to the underlying event or to jets, jet rates, and jet shapes are presented as functions of $N_{ch}$ and compared to the predictions of the PYTHIA and HERWIG event generators. Predictions without multi-parton interactions fail completely to describe the $N_{ch}$-dependence observed in the data. For increasing $N_{ch}$, PYTHIA systematically predicts higher jet rates and harder $p_T$ spectra than seen in the data, whereas HERWIG shows the opposite trends. At the highest multiplicity, the data–model agreement is worse for most observables, indicating the need for further tuning and/or new model ingredients.
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