Multiplicity dependence of charged-particle production in pp, p–Pb, Xe–Xe and Pb–Pb collisions at the LHC

Multiplicity (N _ch) distributions and transverse momentum (p _T) spectra of inclusive primary charged particles in the kinematic range of |η|<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 s _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 _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.