This paper presents a study of the possible ordering of charged hadrons in the azimuthal angle relative to the beam axis in high-energy proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). A spectral analysis of correlations between longitudinal and transverse components of the momentum of the charged hadrons, driven by the search for phenomena related to the structure of the QCD field, is performed. Data were recorded with the ATLAS detector at center-of-mass energies of √s=900 GeV and √s=7 TeV. The correlations measured in a kinematic region dominated by low-pT particles are not well described by conventional models of hadron production. The measured spectra show features consistent with the fragmentation of a QCD string represented by a helixlike ordered gluon chain.4 MoreReceived 2 March 2012DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.86.052005This article is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.© 2012 CERN, for the ATLAS Collaboration