Quark number scaling of hadronic pT spectra and constituent quark degree of freedom in p–Pb collisions at [formula omitted] TeV

Abstract

We show that the experimental data of transverse momentum (pT) spectra of identified hadrons released recently by ALICE collaboration for p–Pb collisions at sNN=5.02 TeV exhibit a distinct universal behavior — the quark number scaling. We further show that the scaling is a direct consequence of quark (re-)combination mechanism of hadronization and can be regarded as a strong indication of the existence of the underlying source with constituent quark degree of freedom for the production of hadrons in p–Pb collisions at such high energies. We make also predictions for production of other hadrons.