Charged particle multiplicities in A+A and p+p collisions in the constituent quarks framework.

Charged particle multiplicities in A+A and p(p̄)+p collisions as a function of pseudorapidity, centrality and energy are studied in both the nucleon and the constituent quark frameworks. In the present work, the calculation using the nuclear overlap model takes into account the fact that for the peripheral A+A and p+p collisions the number of nucleon and constituent quark participants cannot be smaller than two. A striking agreement is seen between the particle density in A+A and p(p̄)+p collisions, both at mid-rapidity and in the fragmentation regions, when normalized to the number of participating constituent quarks. The observations presented in this paper imply that the number of constituent quark pairs participating in the collision controls the particle production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]