Speaker
Description
The ALICE experiment investigates the properties of the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) created in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions. Two of the most prominent signatures of QGP formation are the collective hydrodynamic expansion of the produced medium and the energy loss of high-energy partons traversing the medium, known as jet quenching. Measurements in small collision systems, such as p-Pb, have revealed flow-like signatures, while no unambiguous evidence for jet quenching has been observed, raising important questions about the relation between system size and the onset of QGP effects.
The recent OO collision run at the LHC provides a unique opportunity to bridge the gap between p-Pb and Pb-Pb collisions and to investigate how signatures of the QGP evolve with system size. This contribution will present the first ALICE measurements of inclusive π0 production, inclusive jet production, and hadron-jet correlations in OO collisions. The inclusive observables exhibit a suppression consistent with partonic energy loss in the produced medium, while no significant modification is observed in hadron-jet correlations within the current experimental precision. The different sensitivity of these observables will be discussed.