Speaker
Description
Heavy-ion collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) provide a unique environment for probing the properties of the quark-gluon plasma (QGP), a deconfined state of strongly interacting matter in which quarks and gluons are not bound into hadrons. Heavy quarks (charm and beauty), produced predominantly in the initial hard-scattering processes, traverse the full evolution of the medium and act as privileged probes of its characteristics.
This contribution presents the latest ALICE results on heavy-flavour production in heavy-ion collisions. Measurements of open heavy-flavour hadrons constrain the modelling of energy loss and diffusion of heavy quarks in the QGP, probing the mass dependence of parton–medium interactions. Measurements of elliptic and higher-order flow coefficients of heavy-flavour hadrons provide evidence for charm-quark thermalization and participation in the collective expansion of the medium. Quarkonium production, of both ground and excited states, is discussed in terms of colour screening and regeneration mechanisms, which are sensitive to quarkonium binding energies and the temperature of the QGP. Complementary measurements of coherent photoproduction of quarkonia in ultra-peripheral Pb-Pb collisions are also discussed as a tool to access the gluon distribution in nuclei.
These observables combined provide a comprehensive picture of heavy-quark transport, hadronisation, and quarkonium production in the QGP.