Soft Probes of the Quark-Gluon Plasma with ALICE at LHC

TL;DR

This paper discusses how the ALICE experiment at the LHC aims to study the Quark-Gluon Plasma through soft observables in p-p and Pb-Pb collisions, providing insights into fundamental properties of high-energy nuclear matter.

Contribution

It introduces the ALICE detector's capabilities and outlines the motivations and prospects for soft physics studies in high-energy collisions at the LHC.

Findings

Preparation for data collection at LHC in 2009.

Potential to explore thermodynamic and chemical properties of QGP.

Establishment of p-p collisions as a baseline for heavy-ion studies.

Abstract

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) should start its activity of data taking by the end of summer 2009, and will provide beams of p-p and Pb-Pb at colliding energies up to 14 TeV and 5.5 ATeV respectively. The Pb-Pb heavy-ion program aims at reaching the necessary conditions to create a deconfined state of partons, the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP), whose study is one of the most exciting physics topics to be explored thanks to the possibilites offered by this new-generation accelerator. In particular, the "soft" observables related to low and intermediate pT processes, will shed light on many fundamental properties of the system, such as thermodynamic parameters, chemical composition, expansion velocity etc. The p-p collisions will be of great interest as well, since they will serve as an essential reference for heavy ions. ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) is the LHC experiment dedicated to the study of the QGP. Its large acceptance and low magnetic field make it particularly suited for the study of soft phenomena. After having given an overview of this detector, I will present the main motivations and prospects for soft physics in both p-p and Pb-Pb collisions.