Open heavy-flavour production and elliptic flow in p-Pb collisions at the LHC with ALICE

TL;DR

This paper reports on measurements of open heavy-flavour production and elliptic flow in p-Pb collisions at the LHC, providing insights into Cold Nuclear Matter effects and collective phenomena in small systems.

Contribution

It presents new production and flow measurements of D mesons and heavy-flavour decay electrons in p-Pb collisions at LHC energies.

Findings

Positive elliptic flow ($v_2$) of heavy-flavour decay electrons with >5σ significance.

Production yields of D mesons and heavy-flavour electrons at different energies.

Evidence of collective effects in small collision systems.

Abstract

Measurements of open heavy flavour production in p--A collisions allow the investigation of Cold Nuclear Matter effects. In addition, they are an important tool for a complementary investigation of the long-range correlations found in small systems in the light flavour sector. In this work, production measurements of D mesons at mid-rapidity in p--Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}$ = 5.02 TeV are reported. Production yields are also reported for the heavy-flavour hadron decay electrons at central rapidity at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}$ = 5.02 and 8.16 TeV. The elliptic flow ($v_{\rm 2}$) of heavy-flavour hadron decay electrons in high-multiplicity p-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}$ = 5.02 TeV is found to be positive with a significance larger than $5 \sigma$.