Measurement of D-meson production in pp, p-Pb and Pb-Pb collisions with ALICE at the LHC

Rossi, A. and Abelev, B. and Adam, J. and Adamová, D. and Aggarwal, M. M. and Aglieri, Rinella G. and Agnello, M. and Agostinelli, A. and Agrawal, N. and Ahammed, Z. and Ahmad, N. and Ahmad, Masoodi A. and Ahmed, I. and Ahn, S. U. and Ahn, S. A. and Aimo, I. and Aiola, S. and Ajaz, M. and Akindinov, A. and Aleksandrov, D. and Alessandro, B. and Alexandre, D. and Alici, A. and Alkin, A. and Alme, J. and Alt, T. and Altini, V. and Altinpinar, S. and Altsybeev, I. and Alves, Garcia Prado C. and Barnaföldi, Gergely Gábor and Bencédi, Gyula and Berényi, Dániel and Boldizsár, László and Dénes, Ervin and Hamar, Gergő and Kiss, Gábor and Varga-Kőfaragó, Mónika and Lévai, Péter and Oláh, László and Pochybova, Sona (2014) Measurement of D-meson production in pp, p-Pb and Pb-Pb collisions with ALICE at the LHC. NUCLEAR PHYSICS A, 932. pp. 51-56. ISSN 0375-9474

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Abstract

Heavy quarks, i.e. charm and beauty, are considered calibrated probes for the strongly interacting deconfined medium (Quark Gluon Plasma, QGP) formed in heavy-ion collisions. Produced in hard scattering processes in the initial stages of the collision, they interact with the medium, lose energy and, depending on the coupling strength to the medium, take part in the collective motion of the QCD matter. ALICE measured the production of D0, D∗+, D+ and D+ s mesons at central rapidity in pp, p–Pb and Pb–Pb collisions at the LHC. The study of the modification of the transverse momentum differential yields of charm particles in Pb–Pb collisions with respect to pp collisions, quantified by the nuclear modification factor (RAA), can unravel details of the energy loss mechanism, such as its dependence on the quark mass and on the path length the parton travels through the medium. A similar comparison between pp and p–Pb collision data (RpPb) is fundamental to disentangle effects related to the presence of the hot medium from cold nuclear matter effects. The degree of thermalization and coupling to the medium is investigated in semi-peripheral Pb-Pb collisions by measuring the elliptic flow coefficient (v2) at low pT. At high pT, v2 is sensitive to the path- length dependence of the energy loss. Results on the transverse momentum and centrality dependence of the D-meson elliptic flow and RAA will be presented. The comparison with the RAA of non-prompt J/ψ from B-meson decays measured with CMS will be discussed. The preliminary results on D-meson RpPb and the dependence of D-meson yields on rapidity in p–Pb collisions will be shown. As an outlook, the analysis and the preliminary results on the azimuthal correlations of D-mesons and charged hadrons in pp collisions will be described.

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