Phi meson production is studied by the NA49 collaboration in central Pb+Pb collisions at 20A, 30A, 40A, 80A and 158A GeV beam energy. The data are compared to measurements at lower and higher energies and to microscopic and thermal models. The energy dependence of yields and spectral distributions is compatible with the assumption that partonic degrees of freedom set in at low SPS energies.

We present first data on event-by-event fluctuations in the average transverse momentum of charged particles produced in Pb+Pb collisions at the CERN SPS. This measurement provides previously unavailable information allowing sensitive tests of microscopic and thermodynamic collision models and to search for fluctuations expected to occur in the vicinity of the predicted QCD phase transition. We find that the observed variance of the event-by-event average transverse momentum is consistent with independent particle production modified by the known two-particle correlations due to quantum statistics and final state interactions and folded with the resolution of the NA49 apparatus. For two specific models of non-statistical fluctuations in transverse momentum limits are derived in terms of fluctuation amplitude. We show that a significant part of the parameter space for a model of isospin fluctuations predicted as a consequence of chiral symmetry restoration in a non-equilibrium scenario is excluded by our measurement.

The system created in non-central relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions possesses large orbital angular momentum. Due to spin-orbit coupling, particles produced in such a system could become globally polarized along the direction of the system angular momentum. We present the results of Lambda and anti-Lambda hyperon global polarization measurements in Au+Au collisions at sqrt{s_NN}=62.4 GeV and 200 GeV performed with the STAR detector at RHIC. The observed global polarization of Lambda and anti-Lambda hyperons in the STAR acceptance is consistent with zero within the precision of the measurements. The obtained upper limit, |P_{Lambda,anti-Lambda}| <= 0.02, is compared to the theoretical values discussed recently in the literature.

Protons consist of three valence quarks, two up-quarks and one down-quark, held together by gluons and a sea of quark-antiquark pairs. Collectively, quarks and gluons are referred to as partons. In a proton-proton collision, typically only one parton of each proton undergoes a hard scattering - referred to as single-parton scattering - leaving the remainder of each proton only slightly disturbed. Here, we report the study of double- and triple-parton scatterings through the simultaneous production of three J/$\psi$ mesons, which consist of a charm quark-antiquark pair, in proton-proton collisions recorded with the CMS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. We observed this process - reconstructed through the decays of J/$\psi$ mesons into pairs of oppositely charged muons - with a statistical significance above five standard deviations. We measured the inclusive fiducial cross section to be 272 $^{+141}_{-104}$ (stat) $\pm$ 17 (syst) fb, and compared it to theoretical expectations for triple-J/$\psi$ meson production in single-, double- and triple-parton scattering scenarios. Assuming factorization of multiple hard-scattering probabilities in terms of single-parton scattering cross sections, double- and triple-parton scattering are the dominant contributions for the measured process.

We report systematic measurements of bulk properties of the system created in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}$ = 14.5 GeV recorded by the STAR detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC).The transverse momentum spectra of $\pi^{\pm}$, $K^{\pm}$ and $p(\bar{p})$ are studied at mid-rapidity ($|y| < 0.1$) for nine centrality intervals. The centrality, transverse momentum ($p_T$),and pseudorapidity ($\eta$) dependence of inclusive charged particle elliptic flow ($v_2$), and rapidity-odd charged particles directed flow ($v_{1}$) results near mid-rapidity are also presented. These measurements are compared with the published results from Au+Au collisions at other energies, and from Pb+Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}$ = 2.76 TeV. The results at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}$ = 14.5 GeV show similar behavior as established at other energies and fit well in the energy dependence trend. These results are important as the 14.5 GeV energy fills the gap in $\mu_B$, which is of the order of 100 MeV,between $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}$ =11.5 and 19.6 GeV. Comparisons of the data with UrQMD and AMPT models show poor agreement in general.

The STAR Collaboration at RHIC presents a systematic study of high transverse momentum charged di-hadron correlations at small azimuthal pair separation \dphino, in d+Au and central Au+Au collisions at $\rts = 200$ GeV. Significant correlated yield for pairs with large longitudinal separation \deta is observed in central Au+Au, in contrast to d+Au collisions. The associated yield distribution in \detano$\times$\dphi can be decomposed into a narrow jet-like peak at small angular separation which has a similar shape to that found in d+Au collisions, and a component which is narrow in \dphi and \textcolor{black}{depends only weakly on} $\deta$, the 'ridge'. Using two systematically independent analyses, \textcolor{black}{finite ridge yield} is found to persist for trigger $\pt > 6$ \GeVc, indicating that it is correlated with jet production. The transverse momentum spectrum of hadrons comprising the ridge is found to be similar to that of bulk particle production in the measured range ($2 < \pt < 4 \GeVc$).

The ratios of the production cross sections between the excited $\Upsilon$(2S) and $\Upsilon$(3S) mesons and the $\Upsilon$(1S) ground state, detected via their decay into two muons, are studied as a function of the number of charged particles in the event. The data are from proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s} =$ 7 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.8 fb$^{-1}$, collected with the CMS detector at the LHC. Evidence of a decrease in these ratios as a function of the particle multiplicity is observed, more pronounced at low transverse momentum $p_\mathrm{T}^{\mu\mu}$. For $\Upsilon$(nS) mesons with $p_\mathrm{T}^{\mu\mu}$ $\gt$ 7 GeV, where most of the data were collected, the correlation with multiplicity is studied as a function of the underlying event transverse sphericity and the number of particles in a cone around the $\Upsilon$(nS) direction. The ratios are found to be multiplicity independent for jet-like events. The mean $p_\mathrm{T}^{\mu\mu}$ values for the $\Upsilon$(nS) states as a function of particle multiplicity are also measured and found to grow more steeply as their mass increases.

We present strange particle spectra and yields measured at mid-rapidity in $\sqrt{\text{s}}=200$ GeV proton-proton ($p+p$) collisions at RHIC. We find that the previously observed universal transverse mass ($\mathrm{m_{T}}\equiv\sqrt{\mathrm{p_{T}}^{2}+\mathrm{m}^{2}}$) scaling of hadron production in $p+p$ collisions seems to break down at higher \mt and that there is a difference in the shape of the \mt spectrum between baryons and mesons. We observe mid-rapidity anti-baryon to baryon ratios near unity for $\Lambda$ and $\Xi$ baryons and no dependence of the ratio on transverse momentum, indicating that our data do not yet reach the quark-jet dominated region. We show the dependence of the mean transverse momentum (\mpt) on measured charged particle multiplicity and on particle mass and infer that these trends are consistent with gluon-jet dominated particle production. The data are compared to previous measurements from CERN-SPS, ISR and FNAL experiments and to Leading Order (LO) and Next to Leading order (NLO) string fragmentation model predictions. We infer from these comparisons that the spectral shapes and particle yields from $p+p$ collisions at RHIC energies have large contributions from gluon jets rather than quark jets.

Measurements of charged particle distributions, sensitive to the underlying event, have been performed with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The measurements are based on data collected using a minimum-bias trigger to select proton-proton collisions at center-of-mass energies of 900 GeV and 7 TeV. The 'underlying event' is defined as those aspects of a hadronic interaction attributed not to the hard scattering process, but rather to the accompanying interactions of the rest of the proton. Three regions are defined in azimuthal angle with respect to the highest-pt charged particle in the event, such that the region transverse to the dominant momentum-flow is most sensitive to the underlying event. In each of these regions, distributions of the charged particle multiplicity, pt density, and average pt are measured. The data show a higher underlying event activity than that predicted by Monte Carlo models tuned to pre-LHC data.

We present a measurement of pi^+pi^-pi^+pi^- photonuclear production in ultra-peripheral Au-Au collisions at sqrt(s_{NN}) = 200 GeV from the STAR experiment. The pi^+pi^-pi^+pi^- final states are observed at low transverse momentum and are accompanied by mutual nuclear excitation of the beam particles. The strong enhancement of the production cross section at low transverse momentum is consistent with coherent photoproduction. The pi^+pi^-pi^+pi^- invariant mass spectrum of the coherent events exhibits a broad peak around 1540 pm 40 MeV/c^2 with a width of 570 pm 60 MeV/c^2, in agreement with the photoproduction data for the rho^0(1700). We do not observe a corresponding peak in the pi^+pi^- final state and measure an upper limit for the ratio of the branching fractions of the rho^0(1700) to pi^+pi^- and pi^+pi^-pi^+pi^- of 2.5 % at 90 % confidence level. The ratio of rho^0(1700) and rho^0(770) coherent production cross sections is measured to be 13.4 pm 0.8 (stat.) pm 4.4 (syst.) %.