Deconfinement and degrees of freedom in pp and A-A collisions at LHC energies

We present the extraction of the temperature by analyzing the charged particle transverse momentum spectra in lead–lead (Pb–Pb) and proton–proton ( pp ) collisions at LHC energies from the ALICE Collaboration using the Color String Percolation Model (CSPM). From the measured energy density ε and the temperature T the dimensionless quantity ε/T^4 is obtained to get the degrees of freedom (DOF), ε/T^4 = DOF π ^2/30 . We observe for the first time a two-step behavior in the increase of DOF, characteristic of deconfinement, above the hadronization temperature at temperature ∼ 210 MeV for both Pb–Pb and pp collisions and a sudden increase to the ideal gas value of ∼ 47 corresponding to three quark flavors in the case of Pb–Pb collisions.