Eur. Phys. J. C (2010) 65: 423-426
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-009-1215-8

Regular Article - Theoretical Physics

Nuclear-like effects in proton–proton collisions at high energy

¹ Departamento de Física de Partículas, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela and Instituto Galego de Física de Altas Enerxías (IGFAE), 15782, Santiago de Compostela, Spain
² CENTRA, Instituto Superior Técnico, 1049-001, Lisboa, Portugal

^* e-mail: leticia@fpaxp1.usc.es

Received: 12 June 2009
Revised: 17 September 2009
Published online: 24 November 2009

Abstract

We show that several effects considered nuclear effects are not nuclear in the sense that they do not only occur in nucleus–nucleus and hadron–nucleus collisions but, as well, they are present in hadron–hadron (proton–proton) collisions. The matter creation mechanism in hh, hA and AA collision is always the same. The p _T suppression of particles produced in large multiplicity events compared to low multiplicity events, the elliptic flow and the Cronin effect are predicted to occur in pp collisions at LHC energies as a consequence of the high density partonic medium obtained.