Measurements of multiparticle azimuthal correlations (cumulants) for charged particles in $p$-Pb at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}=5.02$ TeV and Pb-Pb at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}=2.76$ TeV collisions are presented. They help address the question of whether there is evidence for global, flowlike, azimuthal correlations in the $p$-Pb system. Comparisons are made to measurements from the larger Pb-Pb system, where such evidence is established. In particular, the second harmonic two-particle cumulants are found to decrease with multiplicity, characteristic of a dominance of few-particle correlations in $p$-Pb collisions. However, when a $\left|\Delta \eta \right|$ gap is placed to suppress such correlations, the two-particle cumulants begin to rise at high multiplicity, indicating the presence of global azimuthal correlations. The Pb-Pb values are higher than the $p$-Pb values at similar multiplicities. In both systems, the second harmonic four-particle cumulants exhibit a transition from positive to negative values when the multiplicity increases. The negative values allow for a measurement of $v_2\left\{4\right\}$ to be made, which is found to be higher in Pb-Pb collisions at similar multiplicities. The second harmonic six-particle cumulants are also found to be higher in Pb-Pb collisions. In Pb-Pb collisions, we generally find $v_2\left\{4\right\}\simeq v_2\left\{6\right\}\ne 0$ which is indicative of a Bessel-Gaussian function for the $v_2$ distribution. For very high-multiplicity Pb-Pb collisions, we observe that the four- and six-particle cumulants become consistent with 0. Finally, third harmonic two-particle cumulants in $p$-Pb and Pb-Pb are measured. These are found to be similar for overlapping multiplicities, when a $\left|\Delta \eta \right|>1.4$ gap is placed.

• Received 11 June 2014
• Revised 16 September 2014

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.90.054901

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©2014 CERN, for the ALICE Collaboration