Core-corona interplay in Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$=2.76 TeV

Abstract

A simple approach based on the separation of wounded nucleons in an A-A collision in two categories, those suffering single collisions - corona and the rest - core, estimated within a Glauber Monte-Carlo approach, explains the centrality dependence of the light flavor hadrons production in Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$=2.76 TeV. The core contribution does not include any dependence of any process on the fireball shape as a function of the impact parameter. Therefore, the ratios of the $p_T$ distributions to the one corresponding to the minimum bias pp collisions at the same energy, each of them normalised to the corresponding charged particle density, the $\langle p_T\rangle$ and transverse energy per unit of rapidity are reproduced less accurate by such an approach. The results show that the corona contribution plays an important role also at LHC energies and it has to be considered in order to evidence the centrality dependence of different observables related to the core properties and dynamics.