Speaker
Description
Fragmentation functions are fundamental components of the factorization approach which is used to calculate the production cross sections of heavy-flavor hadrons within QCD. Due to their non-perturbative nature, they cannot be computed a priori and are typically extracted from measurements in clean environments such as electron-positron (e$^+$e$^-$) or electron-proton (e$^-$p) collisions. However, recent measurements of the relative abundances of various charmed hadrons in proton-proton (pp) collisions have questioned the universality of charm fragmentation across leptonic and hadronic collision systems.
In this contribution, we present measurements that consider not only heavy-flavor hadrons but also the surrounding charged particles, as angular correlations between charm hadrons and charged particles, and charm-tagged jets.
These observables enable a closer connection to charm fragmentation functions and provide stronger constraints on the hadronization process in hadronic collisions. A Boosted Decision Tree (BDT) classifier is employed to reconstruct charm hadrons in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 13.6$ TeV using data recorded by the ALICE during the Run 3 of the LHC. The FAIR Spoke 6 Project, funded by the NextGenerationEU program in Italy, supports these studies as a valuable use-case to find efficient computing solutions for AI-oriented applications. We report measurements of the fraction of jet longitudinal momentum carried by D$^0$ and $\Lambda_\mathrm c^+$ baryons. Additionally, we present azimuthal correlation distributions of D$_\mathrm s^+$, D$^+$, D$^0$ mesons, and $\Lambda_\mathrm c^+$ baryons with charged particles. Further insight into the correlation patterns is obtained through the extraction of quantitative observables such as the near- and away-side peak integrals and widths. The results are compared to state-of-the-art theoretical predictions to improve our understanding of charm-quark fragmentation and hadronization in hadronic environments. Finally, an outlook on the status of the analysis of D$_\mathrm s^+$-meson and charged particles correlation in central and semicentral Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}} = 5.36$ TeV will be presented.
