Heavy-flavour production measurements in pp collisions at the LHC with ALICE

TL;DR

This paper reports on measurements of heavy-flavour production in proton-proton collisions at the LHC using ALICE, testing pQCD predictions and providing reference data for heavy-ion collision studies.

Contribution

It presents new experimental results on open heavy-flavour production and J/psi multiplicity dependence in pp collisions at LHC energies.

Findings

Heavy-flavour production measurements agree with pQCD predictions.

J/psi production varies with event multiplicity.

Provides baseline data for heavy-ion collision analyses.

Abstract

The measurement of heavy-flavour production in pp collisions at the LHC allows to study the production mechanisms and to test perturbative Quantum Chromodynamics (pQCD) in a new energy domain. Further it provides important reference data for investigations of the medium effects in Pb-Pb collisions, where charm and beauty production measurements are regarded as a unique probe for parton-medium interaction dynamics. We present preliminary results of open heavy-flavour production measurements with ALICE using hadronic D meson decays as well as semi-leptonic decays of D and B mesons and compare these with pQCD predictions. The dependence of J/psi production on event multiplicity is also shown