Heavy-flavour and quarkonium production in the LHC era: from proton-proton to heavy-ion collisions

TL;DR

This review discusses how heavy-flavour and quarkonium production in high-energy collisions serve as probes for understanding Quantum Chromodynamics, the structure of matter, and the properties of the Quark-Gluon Plasma, based on LHC Run 1 and earlier data.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive synthesis of experimental results and future perspectives on heavy-flavour and quarkonium production across different collision systems.

Findings

Insights from LHC Run 1 on quarkonium suppression and production.

Comparison of results from SPS, RHIC, and LHC energies.

Future experimental upgrades and their potential to advance understanding.

Abstract

This report reviews the study of open heavy-flavour and quarkonium production in high-energy hadronic collisions, as tools to investigate fundamental aspects of Quantum Chromodynamics, from the proton and nucleus structure at high energy to deconfinement and the properties of the Quark-Gluon Plasma. Emphasis is given to the lessons learnt from LHC Run 1 results, which are reviewed in a global picture with the results from SPS and RHIC at lower energies, as well as to the questions to be addressed in the future. The report covers heavy flavour and quarkonium production in proton-proton, proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions. This includes discussion of the effects of hot and cold strongly interacting matter, quarkonium photo-production in nucleus-nucleus collisions and perspectives on the study of heavy flavour and quarkonium with upgrades of existing experiments and new experiments. The report results from the activity of the SaporeGravis network of the I3 Hadron Physics programme of the European Union 7th Framework Programme.