# Quark Matter 2014 - XXIV International Conference on Ultrarelativistic Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions

19-24 May 2014
Europe/Zurich timezone

## Heavy-flavour production and nuclear modification factor in Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}$ =2.76 TeV with ALICE

19 May 2014, 11:40
20m

### platinum

Contributed Talk Open Heavy Flavour and Quarkonia

### Speaker

Andrea Festanti (Universita e INFN (IT))

### Description

Heavy quarks (charm and beauty) are considered effective probes to investigate the properties of the strongly-interacting medium formed in high energy nuclear collisions. Heavy quarks lose energy interacting with the medium via inelastic processes (medium-induced gluon radiation) and elastic collisions. The nuclear modification factor, $R_{\rm AA}$, defined as the ratio of the heavy-flavour production yield in nucleus-nucleus collisions to the binary scaled pp one, is an observable sensitive to in-medium energy loss. In particular, the comparison of the $R_{\rm AA}$ of charm, beauty and light-flavour hadrons provides information about the colour charge and parton mass dependence of the energy loss. Open heavy-flavour production was measured with ALICE in Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}=2.76~\mathrm{TeV}$ using D mesons (${\rm D^0}$, ${\rm D^{*+}}$, ${\rm D^{+}}$ and ${\rm D_s^+}$ ) reconstructed from their hadronic decays and electrons from heavy-flavour decays at central rapidity, and muons from heavy-flavour decays at forward rapidity. The D meson and heavy-flavour decay leptons differential $R_{ \rm AA }$ measurements, namely the transverse momentum, rapidity and centrality dependence, will be shown. The comparison of the nuclear modification factors of strange and non-strange D mesons will be presented, as well as the ${\rm D^0}$ $R_{\rm AA}$ measured in different azimuthal regions with respect to the reaction plane of the collision. The D meson $R_{\rm AA}$ will be compared with light-flavour and non-prompt ${\rm J}/\psi$ results (from the CMS experiment). In addition, the heavy-flavour $R_{\rm AA}$ and $v_2$ will be compared to results from Au-Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}=200~\mathrm{GeV}$ measured at RHIC. Finally, the heavy-flavour measurements will be compared to theoretical models.
On behalf of collaboration: ALICE

### Primary author

Andrea Festanti (Universita e INFN (IT))

 Slides