Open heavy-flavour production in pp and Pb-Pb collisions at the LHC, measured with ALICE at central rapidity

TL;DR

This paper reports on measurements of open heavy-flavour production in proton-proton and lead-lead collisions at the LHC using ALICE, providing insights into how heavy quarks interact with the quark-gluon plasma at high energies.

Contribution

It presents new experimental results on open charm and beauty production at central rapidity in Pb-Pb and pp collisions at the LHC, exploring in-medium energy loss effects.

Findings

Measurement of D mesons and electrons from heavy-flavour decays at different energies

Evidence of medium-induced energy loss for heavy quarks

Comparison of results between pp and Pb-Pb collisions

Abstract

The ALICE experiment studies nucleus-nucleus collisions at the LHC in order to investigate the properties of QCD matter at extreme energy densities. The measurement of open charm and open beauty production allows to investigate the interaction of heavy quarks with the hot and dense medium formed in high-energy nucleus-nucleus collisions. In particular, in-medium energy loss is predicted to be different for gluons, light quarks and heavy quarks and to depend on the medium energy density and size. ALICE has measured open heavy-flavour particle production at central rapidity in several decay channels in Pb-Pb and pp collisions at sqrt{s_NN} = 2.76 TeV and sqrt{s} = 2.76, 7 TeV respectively. The results obtained from the reconstruction of D meson decays at central rapidity and from electrons from heavy-flavour hadron decay will be presented.