  We investigate the impact of very strong small x gluon fields in colliding
nucleons at LHC energies on the interaction of valence quarks. We find that in
the range of small impact parameters, which contribute significantly to the
production of heavy new particles, several of the valence quarks receive large
transverse momenta, exceeding 1 GeV/c. This results in a suppression of leading
baryon production and consequently in an additional energy flow to smaller
rapidities. We suggest several triggers for centrality in pp collisions which
allow one to study the propagation of partons through gluon fields of a
strength comparable to the ones encountered in heavy ion collisions at the LHC.
