Frankfurt 2014 – scientific programme

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HK: Fachverband Physik der Hadronen und Kerne

HK 29: Hauptvorträge II

HK 29.1: Invited Talk

Wednesday, March 19, 2014, 11:00–11:40, HZ 1+2

Physics of Heavy Quarks in Nuclear Collisions at the LHC — •Raphaelle Bailhache for the ALICE collaboration — Goethe-Universitaet, Frankfurt, Germany

After three years of successful operation with lead and proton beams at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), many exciting results could be obtained from the measured data. The characterization of the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP), the deconfined state of strongly-interacting matter produced in high-energy collisions of heavy ions, is the main purpose of the ALICE experiment. In this presentation, emphasis will be put on the measurement of heavy quarks, including both hadrons with open heavy flavours and quarkonia. These probes play a key role for the study of thermalization and deconfinement in heavy-ion collisions, and the determination of the QGP properties. The measurements discussed in this talk include heavy-quark energy loss as well as quarkonia suppression and regeneration in the medium. Qualitatively new features are observed in Pb-Pb collisions at the LHC as compared to previous measurements at lower collision energies. The production of heavy quarks is also affected by the presence of cold nuclear matter in the initial state. The study of p-Pb collisions is instrumental to quantify these effects, and supports the conjecture of significant final-state effects in Pb-Pb. Finally, we conclude with a brief look into the future, where an increase of the LHC collision rate and energy will open new opportunities for heavy-quark physics with ALICE.