Energy and centrality dependence of particle multiplicity in heavy ion collisions from sqrt{s_{_(NN)}} = 20 to 2760 GeV

The centrality dependence of midrapidity charged-particle multiplicities at a nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy of 2.76 TeV from CMS are compared to PHOBOS data at 200 and 19.6 GeV. The results are first fitted with a two-component model which parameterizes the separate contributions of nucleon participants and nucleon-nucleon collisions. A more direct comparison involves ratios of multiplicity densities per participant pair between the different collision energies. The results support and extend earlier indications that the influences of centrality and collision energy on midrapidity charged-particle multiplicities are to a large degree independent.