Inclusive transverse momentum spectra of primary charged particles in Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{_{\rm NN}}}$ = 2.76 TeV have been measured by the ALICE Collaboration at the LHC. The data are presented for central and peripheral collisions, corresponding to 0-5% and 70-80% of the hadronic Pb-Pb cross section. The measured charged particle spectra in $|\eta|<0.8$ and $0.3 < p_T < 20$ GeV/$c$ are compared to the expectation in pp collisions at the same $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}$, scaled by the number of underlying nucleon-nucleon collisions. The comparison is expressed in terms of the nuclear modification factor $R_{\rm AA}$. The result indicates only weak medium effects ($R_{\rm AA} \approx $ 0.7) in peripheral collisions. In central collisions, $R_{\rm AA}$ reaches a minimum of about 0.14 at $p_{\rm T}=6$-7GeV/$c$ and increases significantly at larger $p_{\rm T}$. The measured suppression of high-$p_{\rm T}$ particles is stronger than that observed at lower collision energies, indicating that a very dense medium is formed in central Pb-Pb collisions at the LHC.
A measurement is presented of the charged hadron multiplicity in hadronic PbPb collisions, as a function of pseudorapidity and centrality, at a collision energy of 2.76 TeV per nucleon pair. The data sample is collected using the CMS detector and a minimum-bias trigger, with the CMS solenoid off. The number of charged hadrons is measured both by counting the number of reconstructed particle hits and by forming hit doublets of pairs of layers in the pixel detector. The two methods give consistent results. The charged hadron multiplicity density dN(ch)/d eta, evaluated at eta=0 for head-on collisions, is found to be 1612 +/- 55, where the uncertainty is dominated by systematic effects. Comparisons of these results to previous measurements and to various models are also presented.
Measurements of charged-particle fragmentation functions of jets produced in ultra-relativistic nuclear collisions can provide insight into the modification of parton showers in the hot, dense medium created in the collisions. ATLAS has measured jets in $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 2.76$ TeV Pb+Pb collisions at the LHC using a data set recorded in 2011 with an integrated luminosity of 0.14 nb$^{-1}$. Jets were reconstructed using the anti-$k_{t}$ algorithm with distance parameter values $R$ = 0.2, 0.3, and 0.4. Distributions of charged-particle transverse momentum and longitudinal momentum fraction are reported for seven bins in collision centrality for $R=0.4$ jets with $p_{{T}}^{\mathrm{jet}}> 100$ GeV. Commensurate minimum $p_{\mathrm{T}}$ values are used for the other radii. Ratios of fragment distributions in each centrality bin to those measured in the most peripheral bin are presented. These ratios show a reduction of fragment yield in central collisions relative to peripheral collisions at intermediate $z$ values, $0.04 \lesssim z \lesssim 0.2$ and an enhancement in fragment yield for $z \lesssim 0.04$. A smaller, less significant enhancement is observed at large $z$ and large $p_{\mathrm{T}}$ in central collisions.
The ATLAS experiment at the LHC has measured the centrality dependence of charged particle pseudorapidity distributions over |eta| < 2 in lead-lead collisions at a nucleon-nucleon centre-of-mass energy of sqrt(s_NN) = 2.76 TeV. In order to include particles with transverse momentum as low as 30 MeV, the data were recorded with the central solenoid magnet off. Charged particles were reconstructed with two algorithms (2-point 'tracklets' and full tracks) using information from the pixel detector only. The lead-lead collision centrality was characterized by the total transverse energy in the forward calorimeter in the range 3.2 < |eta| < 4.9. Measurements are presented of the per-event charged particle density distribution, dN_ch/deta, and the average charged particle multiplicity in the pseudorapidity interval |eta|<0.5 in several intervals of collision centrality. The results are compared to previous mid-rapidity measurements at the LHC and RHIC. The variation of the mid-rapidity charged particle yield per colliding nucleon pair with the number of participants is consistent with the lower sqrt(s_NN) results. The shape of the dN_ch/deta distribution is found to be independent of centrality within the systematic uncertainties of the measurement.