The transverse-momenta distributions in high-energy $pp$ collisions -- A statistical-mechanical approach

Abstract

We analyze LHC available data measuring the distribution probability of transverse momenta~$p_T$ in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}=0.9\,\textrm{TeV}$ (CMS, ALICE, ATLAS) and $\sqrt{s}=7\,\textrm{TeV}$ (CMS, ATLAS). A remarkably good fitting can be obtained, along fourteen decades in magnitude, by phenomenologically using $q$-statistics for a {\it single} particle of a two-dimensional relativistic ideal gas. The parameters that have been obtained by assuming $\textrm{d}N/p_T\textrm{d}p_T\textrm{d}y \propto e_q^{-E_T/T}$ at mid-rapidity are, in all cases, $q \simeq 1.1$ and $T\simeq 0.13\,\textrm{GeV}$ (which satisfactorily compares with the pion mass). This fact suggests the approximate validity of a "no-hair" statistical-mechanical description of the hard-scattering hadron-production process in which the detailed mechanisms of parton scattering, parton cascades, parton fragmentation, running coupling and other information can be subsumed under the stochastic dynamics in the lowest-order description. In addition to that basic structure, a finer analysis of the data suggests a small oscillatory structure on top of the leading $q$-exponential. The physical origin of such intriguing oscillatory behavior remains elusive, though it could be related to some sort of fractality or scale-invariance within the system.