Observation of heavy-ion like phenomena in high-multiplicity p plus p collisions at LHC energies

Suppression of inclusive hadron yields in nuclear systems with respect to the elementary p + p collisions is believed to be caused by the jet quenching. The quantification of the jet quenching via the nuclear modification factor is difficult to conceive in small systems since it is influenced by several experimental factors such as the estimation of the centrality and the scaling factor. In this article we propose an alternate approach to address this issue and explore the possibility of measuring jet quenching in a high-multiplicity p + p system using the PYTHIA8 event generator. We have used a novel approach to estimate the high-multiplicity class in p + p systems, and the results from the standard method of multiplicity class determination are also presented. Results from this investigation qualitatively show the existence of heavy-ion like behavior in high-multiplicity p+p collisions which is mainly contributed by the Color Reconnection mechanism. Copyright (C) 2022 EPLA