Measurements of the midrapidity transverse energy distribution, $d\Et/d\eta$, are presented for $p$$+$$p$, $d$$+$Au, and Au$+$Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=200$ GeV and additionally for Au$+$Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=62.4$ and 130 GeV. The $d\Et/d\eta$ distributions are first compared with the number of nucleon participants $N_{\rm part}$, number of binary collisions $N_{\rm coll}$, and number of constituent-quark participants $N_{qp}$ calculated from a Glauber model based on the nuclear geometry. For Au$+$Au, $\mean{d\Et/d\eta}/N_{\rm part}$ increases with $N_{\rm part}$, while $\mean{d\Et/d\eta}/N_{qp}$ is approximately constant for all three energies. This indicates that the two component ansatz, $dE_{T}/d\eta \propto (1-x) N_{\rm part}/2 + x N_{\rm coll}$, which has been used to represent $E_T$ distributions, is simply a proxy for $N_{qp}$, and that the $N_{\rm coll}$ term does not represent a hard-scattering component in $E_T$ distributions. The $dE_{T}/d\eta$ distributions of Au$+$Au and $d$$+$Au are then calculated from the measured $p$$+$$p$ $E_T$ distribution using two models that both reproduce the Au$+$Au data. However, while the number-of-constituent-quark-participant model agrees well with the $d$$+$Au data, the additive-quark model does not.

A measurement of the underlying activity in scattering processes with transverse momentum scale in the GeV region is performed in proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 0.9 TeV, using data collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC. Charged hadron production is studied with reference to the direction of a leading object, either a charged particle or a set of charged particles forming a jet. Predictions of several QCD-inspired models as implemented in PYTHIA are compared, after full detector simulation, to the data. The models generally predict too little production of charged hadrons with pseudorapidity eta < 2, p_T > 0.5 GeV/c, and azimuthal direction transverse to that of the leading object.

Multiplicity ($N_{\rm ch}$) distributions and transverse momentum ($p_{\rm T}$) spectra of inclusive primary charged particles in the kinematic range of $|\eta| < 0.8$ and 0.15 GeV/$c$$< p_{T} <$ 10 GeV/$c$ are reported for pp, p-Pb, Xe-Xe and Pb-Pb collisions at centre-of-mass energies per nucleon pair ranging from $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}} = 2.76$ TeV up to $13$ TeV. A sequential two-dimensional unfolding procedure is used to extract the correlation between the transverse momentum of primary charged particles and the charged-particle multiplicity of the corresponding collision. This correlation sharply characterises important features of the final state of a collision and, therefore, can be used as a stringent test of theoretical models. The multiplicity distributions as well as the mean and standard deviation derived from the $p_{\rm T}$ spectra are compared to state-of-the-art model predictions. Providing these fundamental observables of bulk particle production consistently across a wide range of collision energies and system sizes can serve as an important input for tuning Monte Carlo event generators.

The pseudorapidity density of charged particles, $\rm{d}\it{N}_\rm{ch}/\rm{d}\it{\eta}$, in p-Pb collisions has been measured at a centre-of-mass energy per nucleon-nucleon pair of $\sqrt{s_{\rm{NN}}}$ = 8.16 TeV at mid-pseudorapidity for non-single-diffractive events. The results cover 3.6 units of pseudorapidity, $|\eta|<1.8$. The $\rm{d}\it{N}_\rm{ch}/\rm{d}\it{\eta}$ value is $19.1\pm0.7$ at $|\eta|<0.5$. This quantity divided by $\langle N_\rm{part} \rangle/2$, is $4.73\pm0.20$, which is 9.5% higher than the corresponding value for p-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm{NN}}}$ = 5.02 TeV. Measurements are compared with models based on different mechanisms for particle production. All models agree within uncertainties with data in the Pb-going side, while HIJING overestimates, showing a symmetric behaviour, and EPOS underestimates the p-going side of the $\rm{d}\it{N}_\rm{ch}/\rm{d}\it{\eta}$ distribution. Saturation-based models reproduce the distributions well for $\eta>-1.3$. The $\rm{d}\it{N}_\rm{ch}/\rm{d}\it{\eta}$ is also measured for different centrality estimators, based both on the charged-particle multiplicity and on the energy deposited in the Zero-Degree Calorimeters. A study of the implications of the large multiplicity fluctuations due to the small number of participants for systems like p-Pb in the centrality calculation for multiplicity-based estimators is discussed, demonstrating the advantages of determining the centrality with energy deposited near beam rapidity.

Measurements of jet characteristics from inclusive jet production in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV are presented. The data sample was collected with the CMS detector at the LHC during 2010 and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 36 inverse picobarns. The mean charged hadron multiplicity, the differential and integral jet shape distributions, and two independent moments of the shape distributions are measured as functions of the jet transverse momentum for jets reconstructed with the anti-kT algorithm. The measured observables are corrected to the particle level and compared with predictions from various QCD Monte Carlo generators.

This publication describes the methods used to measure the centrality of inelastic Pb-Pb collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 2.76 TeV per colliding nucleon pair with ALICE. The centrality is a key parameter in the study of the properties of QCD matter at extreme temperature and energy density, because it is directly related to the initial overlap region of the colliding nuclei. Geometrical properties of the collision, such as the number of participating nucleons and number of binary nucleon-nucleon collisions, are deduced from a Glauber model with a sharp impact parameter selection, and shown to be consistent with those extracted from the data. The centrality determination provides a tool to compare ALICE measurements with those of other experiments and with theoretical calculations.

We describe a cone-based jet finding algorithm (similar to that used in\(\bar p\)p experiments), which we have applied to hadronic events recorded using the OPAL detector at LEP. Comparisons are made between jets defined with the cone algorithm and jets found by the “JADE” and “Durham” jet finders usually used ine+e− experiments. Measured jet rates, as a function of the cone size and as a function of the minimum jet energy, have been compared with O(αs2) calculations, from which two complementary measurements\(\alpha _s \left( {M_{Z^0 } } \right)\) have been made. The results are\(\alpha _s \left( {M_{Z^0 } } \right)\)=0.116±0.008 and\(\alpha _s \left( {M_{Z^0 } } \right)\)=0.119±0.008 respectively, where the errors include both experimental and theoretical uncertainties. Measurements are presented of the energy flow inside jets defined using the cone algorithm, and compared with equivalent data from\(\bar p\)p interactions, reported by the CDF collaboration. We find that the jets ine+e− are significantly narrower than those observed in\(\bar p\)p. The main contribution to this effect appears to arise from differences between quark- and gluon-induced jets.

A detailed study of pseudorapidity densities and multiplicity distributions of primary charged particles produced in proton-proton collisions, at $\sqrt{s} =$ 0.9, 2.36, 2.76, 7 and 8 TeV, in the pseudorapidity range $|\eta|<2$, was carried out using the ALICE detector. Measurements were obtained for three event classes: inelastic, non-single diffractive and events with at least one charged particle in the pseudorapidity interval $|\eta|<1$. The use of an improved track-counting algorithm combined with ALICE's measurements of diffractive processes allows a higher precision compared to our previous publications. A KNO scaling study was performed in the pseudorapidity intervals $|\eta|<$ 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5. The data are compared to other experimental results and to models as implemented in Monte Carlo event generators PHOJET and recent tunes of PYTHIA6, PYTHIA8 and EPOS.

The charged particle production in proton-proton collisions is studied with the LHCb detector at a centre-of-mass energy of ${\sqrt{s} =7}$TeV in different intervals of pseudorapidity $\eta$. The charged particles are reconstructed close to the interaction region in the vertex detector, which provides high reconstruction efficiency in the $\eta$ ranges $-2.5&lt;\eta&lt;-2.0$ and $2.0&lt;\eta&lt;4.5$. The data were taken with a minimum bias trigger, only requiring one or more reconstructed tracks in the vertex detector. By selecting an event sample with at least one track with a transverse momentum greater than 1 GeV/c a hard QCD subsample is investigated. Several event generators are compared with the data; none are able to describe fully the multiplicity distributions or the charged particle density distribution as a function of $\eta$. In general, the models underestimate the charged particle production.

Charged particle multiplicities are studied in proton-proton collisions in the forward region at a centre-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s} = 7\;$TeV with data collected by the LHCb detector. The forward spectrometer allows access to a kinematic range of $2.0<\eta<4.8$ in pseudorapidity, momenta down to $2\;$GeV/$c$ and transverse momenta down to $0.2\;$GeV/$c$. The measurements are performed using minimum-bias events with at least one charged particle in the kinematic acceptance. The results are presented as functions of pseudorapidity and transverse momentum and are compared to predictions from several Monte Carlo event generators.