Remarks on the particle multiplicities at LHC energies

Abstract

Recent ALICE data for the multiplicity distributions in the central rapidity bins at LHC energies are compared with the results from two default versions of the PYTHIA 8 generator. We find that, contrary to the earlier versions of PYTHIA, the model overestimates the increase of average multiplicity with energy. Tuning two of the model parameters one obtains reasonable agreement with data. The dependence of the normalized moments of the distribution on the rapidity bin width and on energy is also qualitatively correct.