Speaker
Description
Open heavy-flavour hadrons are one of the key diagnostic tools available to study the dense, hot, and strongly interacting matter formed in heavy-ion collisions. The charm and beauty quarks are produced mainly in hard parton scatterings at the early stages of the collisions. Measurements of their production in proton–proton (pp) collisions are an important test of perturbative Quantum Chromodynamics (pQCD) calculations and serve as a reference for heavy-ion collisions.
Recent observations at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have revealed a significant enhancement in baryon production in hadronic collisions compared to electron–positron and electron–proton collisions. This challenges the conventional assumption of fragmentation universality. This phenomenon, initially highlighted in the charm sector, has also been seen in the beauty sector, suggesting broader implications for heavy-flavour hadronisation processes. To better understand these observations, multiplicity dependent measurements are carried out to investigate hadronisation mechanisms and characterise multiparton interactions, searching for possible connections between small and extended interacting systems.
In addition to single-particle observables, heavy-flavour production can also be explored through particle pairs. The study of angular correlations between charmed hadrons and charged particles provides a powerful tool for investigating charm-quark production and fragmentation. Furthermore, the production of heavy-flavour hadron pairs offers a unique opportunity to study Double Parton Scattering (DPS), a process in which two independent parton–parton scatterings take place within a single pp collision.
This contribution presents the latest measurements of strange ($\Xi_\mathrm{c}^{0,+}$, $\Omega_\mathrm{c}^{0}$, $\mathrm{D_s}^+$, $\mathrm{D_{s1}}(2536)^+$, $\mathrm{D_{s2}}^{*}(2573)^+$) and non-strange ($\Lambda_\mathrm{c}^+$, $\Sigma_\mathrm{c}(2455)^{0,++}$, $\Sigma_\mathrm{c}(2520)^{0,++}$, $\mathrm{D}^{0,+}$) charm-hadron production, as well as non-strange B mesons and $\mathrm{B_s^0}$ mesons in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 13.6$ TeV, recorded by the ALICE experiment during LHC Run 3. We also report new results on the production of charm-hadron and quarkonium pairs, specifically D$^0$D$^0$ and D$^0$J/$\psi$, as well as angular correlations involving $\mathrm{D_s}^+$-hadron and $\Lambda_\mathrm{c}^+$-hadron pairs in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 13.6$ TeV. Selected results from Run 2 on charm-hadron production are included for comparison. Detailed comparisons with model expectations are presented to provide further insights into heavy-flavour production and hadronisation.
| Track | 6: Heavy Quarks (including top and flavour physics) |
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