Speaker
Description
Due to the extremely large temperatures generated in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions at the LHC, a state of matter known as the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP), where quarks and gluons are no longer confined within hadrons but exist in a deconfined state, is created. This phase transition occurs at around 170 MeV, and studies of the QGP aim to address fundamental questions related to the bulk properties and dynamics of hot QCD matter and confinement. One of the most important methods of probing the QGP is the measurement of the production and modification of ‘hard’ partons produced at the start of the collision, which experience the full lifetime of the system and thus can be used to study the structure and dynamics of the QGP. This talk will outline the motivation for these measurements and will show some highlights of recent results from ALICE. The focus of this contribution will be on two such probes - i) heavy quarks and ii) jets, measurements of which have brought important new insights into the properties of the QGP in recent years.
