Within the first two years of the LHC operation ALICE addressed the major soft physics observables in Pb-Pb and pp collisions. In this contribution we present a selection of these results, with the emphasis on the bulk particle production and on part
icle correlations. The latter subject is discussed in detail in several dedicated ALICE talks in the same workshop; the reader is referred to the corresponding contributions.
We present results of a two-pion correlation analysis performed with the Au+Pb collision data collected by the upgraded CERES experiment in the fall of 2000. The analysis was done in bins of the reaction centrality and the pion azimuthal emission ang
le with respect to the reaction plane. The pion source, deduced from the data, is slightly elongated in the direction perpendicular to the reaction plane, similarly as was observed at the AGS and at RHIC.
A Nd:YAG laser was used to simulate charged particle tracks at known positions in the CERES Time Projection Chamber at the CERN SPS. The system was primarily developed to study the response of the readout electronics and to calibrate the electron dri
ft velocity. Further applications were the determination of the gating grid transparency, the chamber position calibration, and long-term monitoring of drift properties of the gas in the detector.
