The per-event yield of the highest transverse momentum charged particle and charged-particle jet, integrated above a given pt(min) threshold starting at pt(min) = 0.8 and 1 GeV, respectively, is studied in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV. The particles and the jets are measured in the pseudorapidity ranges abs(eta) < 2.4 and 1.9, respectively. The data are sensitive to the momentum scale at which parton densities saturate in the proton, to multiple partonic interactions, and to other key aspects of the transition between the soft and hard QCD regimes in hadronic collisions.
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.