The collective behavior of K$^0_\mathrm{S}$ and $\Lambda/\bar{\Lambda}$ strange hadrons is studied by measuring the elliptic azimuthal anisotropy ($v_2$) using the scalar-product and multiparticle correlation methods. Proton-lead (pPb) collisions at a nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy $\sqrt{s_\mathrm{NN}}$ = 8.16 TeV and lead-lead (PbPb) collisions at $\sqrt{s_\mathrm{NN}}$ = 5.02 TeV collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC are investigated. Nonflow effects in the pPb collisions are studied by using a subevent cumulant analysis and by excluding events where a jet with transverse momentum greater than 20\GeV is present. The strange hadron $v_2$ values extracted in \pPb collisions via the four- and six-particle correlation method are found to be nearly identical, suggesting the collective behavior. Comparisons of the pPb and PbPb results for both strange hadrons and charged particles illustrate how event-by-event flow fluctuations depend on the system size.

Measurements of two- and multi-particle angular correlations in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 5, 7, and 13 TeV are presented as a function of charged-particle multiplicity. The data, corresponding to integrated luminosities of 1.0 inverse picobarn (5 TeV), 6.2 inverse picobarns (7 TeV), and 0.7 inverse picobarns (13 TeV), were collected using the CMS detector at the LHC. The second-order (v[2]) and third-order (v[3]) azimuthal anisotropy harmonics of unidentified charged particles, as well as v[2] of K0 short and Lambda/anti-Lambda particles, are extracted from long-range two-particle correlations as functions of particle multiplicity and transverse momentum. For high-multiplicity pp events, a mass ordering is observed for the v[2] values of charged hadrons (mostly pions), K0 short, and Lambda/anti-Lambda, with lighter particle species exhibiting a stronger azimuthal anisotropy signal below pt of about 2 GeV/c. For 13 TeV data, the v[2] signals are also extracted from four- and six-particle correlations for the first time in pp collisions, with comparable magnitude to those from two-particle correlations. These observations are similar to those seen in pPb and PbPb collisions, and support the interpretation of a collective origin for the observed long-range correlations in high-multiplicity pp collisions.

The first observation of top quark production in proton-nucleus collisions is reported using proton-lead data collected by the CMS experiment at the CERN LHC at a nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy of sqrt(s[NN]) = 8.16 TeV. The measurement is performed using events with exactly one isolated electron or muon and at least four jets. The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 174 inverse nanobarns. The significance of the tt-bar signal against the background-only hypothesis is above five standard deviations. The measured cross section is sigma[tt-bar] = 45 +/- 8 nb, consistent with predictions from perturbative quantum chromodynamics.

A search for partonic collective effects inside jets produced in proton-proton collisions is performed via correlation measurements of charged constituents using the CMS detector at the CERN LHC. The analysis uses data collected at a center-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb$^{-1}$. Jets are reconstructed with the anti-$k_\mathrm{T}$ algorithm with a distance parameter of 0.8 and are required to have transverse momentum greater than 550 GeV and pseudorapidity $\lvert\eta\rvert$$\lt$ 1.6. Two-particle correlations among the charged constituents within the jets are studied as functions of the particles' azimuthal angle and pseudorapidity separations ($\Delta\phi^*$ and $\Delta\eta^*$) in a jet coordinate basis, where constituents' $\eta^*$, $\phi^*$ are defined relative to the direction of the jet. The correlation functions are studied in classes of in-jet charged-particle multiplicity up to $N_\text{ch}^\mathrm{j}$$\approx$ 100. Fourier harmonics are extracted from long-range azimuthal correlation functions to characterize azimuthal anisotropy for $\lvert\Delta\eta^*\rvert$$\gt$ 2. For low-multiplicity jets, the long-range elliptic anisotropic harmonic, $v^*_2$, is observed to decrease with $N_\text{ch}^\mathrm{j}$. This trend is well described by Monte Carlo event generators. However, a rising trend for $v^*_2$ emerges at $N_\text{ch}^\mathrm{j}$$\gtrsim$ 80, hinting at a possible onset of collective behavior, which is not reproduced by the models tested. This observation yields new insights into the dynamics of parton fragmentation processes in the vacuum.

Ultrarelativistic nuclear collisions create a strongly interacting state of hot and dense quark-gluon matter that exhibits a remarkable collective flow behavior with minimal viscous dissipation. To gain deeper insights into its intrinsic nature and fundamental degrees of freedom, we extracted the speed of sound in this medium created using lead-lead (PbPb) collisions at a center-of-mass energy per nucleon pair of 5.02 TeV. The data were recorded by the CMS experiment at the CERN LHC and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 0.607 nb$^{-1}$. The measurement is performed by studying the multiplicity dependence of the average transverse momentum of charged particles emitted in head-on PbPb collisions. Our findings reveal that the speed of sound in this matter is nearly half the speed of light, with a squared value of 0.241 $\pm$ 0.002 (stat) $\pm$ 0.016 (syst) in natural units. The effective medium temperature, estimated using the mean transverse momentum, is 219 $\pm$ 8 (syst) MeV. The measured squared speed of sound at this temperature aligns precisely with predictions from lattice quantum chromodynamic (QCD) calculations. This result provides a stringent constraint on the equation of state of the created medium and direct evidence for a deconfined QCD phase being attained in relativistic nuclear collisions.

The study of (anti-)deuteron production in pp collisions has proven to be a powerful tool to investigate the formation mechanism of loosely bound states in high energy hadronic collisions. In this paper the production of (anti-)deuterons is studied as a function of the charged particle multiplicity in inelastic pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV using the ALICE experiment. Thanks to the large number of accumulated minimum bias events, it has been possible to measure (anti-)deuteron production in pp collisions up to the same charged particle multiplicity ($\rm{d} N_{ch}/\rm{d}\eta\sim26$) as measured in p-Pb collisions at similar centre-of-mass energies. Within the uncertainties, the deuteron yield in pp collisions resembles the one in p-Pb interactions, suggesting a common formation mechanism behind the production of light nuclei in hadronic interactions. In this context the measurements are compared with the expectations of coalescence and Statistical Hadronisation Models (SHM).

Despite the f$_0$(980) hadron having been discovered half a century ago, the question about its quark content has not been settled: it might be an ordinary quark-antiquark ($\mathrm{q\bar{q}}$) meson, a tetraquark ($\mathrm{q\bar{q}q\bar{q}}$) exotic state, a kaon-antikaon ($\mathrm{K\bar{K}}$) molecule, or a quark-antiquark-gluon ($\mathrm{q\bar{q}g}$) hybrid. This paper reports strong evidence that the f$_0$(980) state is an ordinary $\mathrm{q\bar{q}}$ meson, inferred from the scaling of elliptic anisotropies ($v_2$) with the number of constituent quarks ($n_\mathrm{q}$), as empirically established using conventional hadrons in relativistic heavy ion collisions. The f$_0$(980) state is reconstructed via its dominant decay channel f$_0$(980) $\to$$\pi^+\pi^-$, in proton-lead collisions recorded by the CMS experiment at the LHC, and its $v_2$ is measured as a function of transverse momentum ($p_\mathrm{T}$). It is found that the $n_q$ = 2 ($\mathrm{q\bar{q}}$ state) hypothesis is favored over $n_q$ = 4 ($\mathrm{q\bar{q}q\bar{q}}$ or $\mathrm{K\bar{K}}$ states) by 7.7, 6.3, or 3.1 standard deviations in the $p_\mathrm{T}$$\lt$ 10, 8, or 6 GeV/$c$ ranges, respectively, and over $n_\mathrm{q}$ = 3 ($\mathrm{q\bar{q}g}$ hybrid state) by 3.5 standard deviations in the $p_\mathrm{T}$$\lt$ 8 GeV/$c$ range. This result represents the first determination of the quark content of the f$_0$(980) state, made possible by using a novel approach, and paves the way for similar studies of other exotic hadron candidates.

Ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions recreate in the laboratory the thermodynamical conditions prevailing in the early universe up to 10$^{-6}$ seconds, thereby allowing the study of the quark-gluon plasma (QGP), a state of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) matter with deconfined partons. The top quark, the heaviest elementary particle known, is accessible in nucleus-nucleus collisions at the CERN LHC, and constitutes a novel probe of the QGP. Here, we report the first-ever evidence for the production of top quarks in nucleus-nucleus collisions, using lead-lead collision data at a nucleon-nucleon centre-of-mass energy of 5.02 TeV recorded by the CMS experiment. Two methods are used to measure the cross section for top quark pair production ($\sigma_\mathrm{t\bar{t}}$) via the decay into charged leptons (electrons or muons) and bottom quarks. One method relies on the leptonic information alone, and the second one exploits, in addition, the presence of bottom quarks. The measured cross sections, $\sigma_\mathrm{t\bar{t}} = $ 2.54 $^{+0.84}_{-0.74}$ and 2.03 $^{+0.71}_{-0.64}$ $\mu$b, respectively, are compatible with expectations from scaled proton-proton data and QCD predictions.

For the first time a principle-component analysis is used to separate out different orthogonal modes of the two-particle correlation matrix from heavy ion collisions. The analysis uses data from sqrt(s[NN]) = 2.76 TeV PbPb and sqrt(s[NN]) = 5.02 TeV pPb collisions collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC. Two-particle azimuthal correlations have been extensively used to study hydrodynamic flow in heavy ion collisions. Recently it has been shown that the expected factorization of two-particle results into a product of the constituent single-particle anisotropies is broken. The new information provided by these modes may shed light on the breakdown of flow factorization in heavy ion collisions. The first two modes ("leading" and "subleading") of two-particle correlations are presented for elliptical and triangular anisotropies in PbPb and pPb collisions as a function of pt over a wide range of event activity. The leading mode is found to be essentially equivalent to the anisotropy harmonic previously extracted from two-particle correlation methods. The subleading mode represents a new experimental observable and is shown to account for a large fraction of the factorization breaking recently observed at high transverse momentum. The principle-component analysis technique has also been applied to multiplicity fluctuations. These also show a subleading mode. The connection of these new results to previous studies of factorization is discussed.

Measurements of the charge-dependent two-particle angular correlation function in proton-lead (pPb) collisions at a nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s_\mathrm{NN}}$ = 8.16 TeV and lead-lead (PbPb) collisions at$\sqrt{s_\mathrm{NN}}$ = 5.02 TeV are reported. The pPb and PbPb datasets correspond to integrated luminosities of 186\nbinv and 0.607 nb$^{-1}$, respectively, and were collected using the CMS detector at the CERN LHC. The charge-dependent correlations are characterized by balance functions of same- and opposite-sign particle pairs. The balance functions, which contain information about the creation time of charged particle pairs and the development of collectivity, are studied as functions of relative pseudorapidity ($\Delta \eta$) and relative azimuthal angle ($\Delta \phi$), for various multiplicity and transverse momentum ($p_\mathrm{T}$) intervals. A multiplicity dependence of the balance function is observed in $\Delta \eta$ and $\Delta \phi$ for both systems. The width of the balance functions decreases towards high-multiplicity collisions in the momentum region $\lt$2 GeV, for pPb and PbPb results. No multiplicity dependence is observed at higher transverse momentum. The data are compared with HYDJET, HIJING and AMPT generator predictions, none of which capture completely the multiplicity dependence seen in the data.