Speaker
Dr
Rossella Romita
(GSI, Darmstadt)
Description
The ALICE experiment is the LHC detector dedicated to the study of the Quark Gluon
Plasma (QGP) in Pb-Pb collisions. Heavy flavours are ideal probes to explore both the
formation and properties of the QGP, since they experience the full collision history and
are expected to be copiously produced at LHC, much more than at any other collider.
With ALICE we will measure heavy flavours down to small transverse momentum,
combining hadronic and leptonic channels, both at central and forward rapidity. In
particular, at central rapidity, it is possible to exclusively reconstruct a selection of
hadronic decay channels for open charm mesons and baryons. In addiction, the good
identification of electrons allows to measure the production both of charmonium and
open bottom.
An overview of the heavy flavour programme will be presented, focusing on the charm
measurement in the central rapidity region. First results from p-p collisions at 7 TeV will
be shown, including the clear signals of open and hidden charm hadrons reconstructed at
ALICE. These data provide interesting insight into QCD processes in a new energy
regime, are important as a baseline for the Pb-Pb program and demonstrate the potential
for heavy flavour cross section measurements with the ALICE detector.
Primary author
Dr
Rossella Romita
(GSI, Darmstadt)
