Measurement of heavy-flavour production in proton-proton collisions at sqrt{s} = 7 TeV with ALICE

TL;DR

This paper reports on the measurement of heavy-flavour production cross sections in proton-proton collisions at 7 TeV using the ALICE detector, providing essential data for testing QCD and serving as a baseline for heavy-ion studies.

Contribution

It presents the first preliminary measurements of charm and beauty production, including cross sections for D mesons, muons from heavy-flavour decays, and J/psi production at different rapidities.

Findings

First cross section measurement of muons from heavy-flavour decays at forward rapidity.

Preliminary cross sections for D mesons and J/psi production at various rapidities.

Abstract

The measurement of the heavy-flavour production cross sections in pp collisions at the LHC will allow to test perturbative QCD calculations in a new energy domain. Moreover, within the physics program of the ALICE experiment, it will provide the reference for the study of medium effects in Pb-Pb collisions, where heavy quarks are regarded as sensitive probes of parton-medium interaction dynamics. We present the status and first preliminary results of charm and beauty production measurements with the ALICE experiment, using hadronic D meson decays and semi-leptonic D and B meson decays, including the first cross section measurement of muons from heavy flavour decays at forward rapidity. We also describe the preliminary cross section measurement for J/psi production, obtained using the di-electron decay channel at central rapidity and the di-muon decay channel at forward rapidity.