Pseudorapidity distributions of charged particles in Pb-Pb collisions at super proton synchrotron energies from the NA50 experiment

We present the measurements of charged particle pseudorapidity distributions dNch/dη performed by the NA50 experiment in Pb-Pb collisions at the CERN SPS. Measurements were done at incident energies of 40 GeV (√s = 8.77 GeV) and 158 GeV (√s = 17.3 GeV) per nucleon over a broad impact parameter range. The multiplicity distributions are studied as a function of centrality using the number of participating nucleons(N part ), or the number of binary nucleon-nucleon collisions (Ncoll). Their values at midrapidity exhibit a linear scaling withN part at both energies. Particle yield increases approximately by a factor of 2 betweeny √s = 8.77 GeV and √s = 17.3 GeV.