Measurement of heavy-flavor production in Pb-Pb collisions at the LHC with ALICE

TL;DR

This paper reports on measurements of heavy-flavor production in lead-lead collisions at the LHC, using the ALICE detector to probe the properties of the Quark-Gluon Plasma through nuclear modification factors and azimuthal anisotropy of open heavy-flavor hadrons.

Contribution

It provides new experimental results on heavy-flavor suppression and flow in Pb-Pb collisions at 2.76 TeV, utilizing advanced detection techniques in the ALICE experiment.

Findings

Observation of nuclear modification factor indicating suppression of heavy-flavor yields.

Measurement of azimuthal anisotropy v2 showing collective flow of heavy-flavor particles.

Detailed reconstruction of open charmed hadrons in multiple decay channels.

Abstract

A Large Ion Collider Experiment (ALICE) at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has been built in order to study the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) created in high-energy nuclear collisions. As heavy-flavor quarks are produced at the early stage of the collision, they serve as sensitive probes for the QGP. The ALICE detector with its capabilities such as particle identification, secondary vertexing and tracking in a high multiplicity environment can address, among other measurements, the heavy-flavor sector in heavy-ion collisions. We present latest results on the measurement of the nuclear modification factor of open heavy-flavors as well as on the measurement of open heavy-flavor azimuthal anisotropy v2 in Pb-Pb collisions at sqrt(s) = 2.76 TeV. Open charmed hadrons are reconstructed in the hadronic decay channels D0->Kpi, D+->Kpipi, and D*+->D0pi applying a secondary decay-vertex topology. Complementary measurements are performed by detecting electrons (muons) from semi-leptonic decays of open heavy-flavor hadrons in the central (forward) rapidity region.