Speakers
Description
In proton-proton (pp) collisions, open heavy-flavour hadrons are valuable tools for testing perturbative Quantum Chromo-Dynamics (pQCD) calculations. Indeed, the large heavy-quark masses (with respect to the QCD scale parameter) allow to calculate the heavy-quark production cross section, as perturbation series in $\alpha_S$ down to $p_{\mathrm T}=0$.
The ALICE experiment has measured D mesons in pp collisions, via the reconstruction of hadronic decay channels at central rapidity, as well as muons (electrons) from semi-leptonic decay of heavy-flavour hadrons at forward (mid) rapidity. These measurements, performed over a wide range of transverse momentum, in several rapidity regions and for different collision energies, have much smaller uncertainties than the typical theoretical ones. Thus, ALICE results challenge state-of-the-art pQCD calculations such as FONLL and GM-VFNS and, besides, add sensitivity to gluon PDF.
More differential measurements help studying further charm production: the analysis of D-meson-tagged jets allows measuring charm jet production, and addressing charm-quark production processes and charm fragmentation properties. Additionally, multiplicity-dependent measurements of heavy-flavour production provide insight into multi-parton interactions and the possible interplay of soft and hard processes.
In this talk, new and most recent ALICE results on open heavy-flavours in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}=2.76$, 5, 7, 8 and 13 TeV will be presented and compared with theoretical and model predictions.
