Speaker
Description
Charm quarks are a powerful probe of the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) formed in high energy heavy-ion collisions. Produced in hard scattering processes on a timescale shorter than the QGP formation time, they experience the whole system evolution. There have been extensive researches regarding the production of charm mesons, such as D$^0$, D$^+$, D$^{*+}$, in heavy-ion collisions to investigate the interactions of charm quarks with the QGP constituents and the transport properties of the medium.
At low and intermediate $p_{\rm T}$, the D$_s$-meson measurements can reveal information about the heavy-quark hadronization mechanism. If recombination occurs, at low $p_{\rm T}$ the relative abundance of D$_s$ mesons with respect to non strange D mesons is expected to be larger in Pb-Pb than in pp collisions.
The measurement of charm-baryon production, and in particular the baryon-to-meson ratio, provides unique information on hadronisation mechanisms, constraining the role of coalescence and testing the predicted presence of diquark states in the QGP.
In this contribution,a comprehensive review of ALICE results on D$_s$ production will be presented, with particular emphasis on the latest ALICE results from the large-size 2018 Pb-Pb data taking campaign at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}} = 5.02$ TeV, essential to provide more conclusive results on D$_s$-meson suppression at low-intermediate $p_{\rm T}$ and to improve the statistical precision of the $v_2$ measurement obtained with 2015 Pb-Pb data. In addition, the new results on charm-baryon production from the 2018 Pb-Pb sample will be shown. They will allow for a significant reduction of the uncertainties as well as for an extension of the accessible $p_{\rm T}$ interval with respect to the first measurement of $\Lambda_{\rm c}^+$ in Pb-Pb collisions based on the 2015 data in the centrality range 0-80%. For both D$_s$ and $\Lambda_{\rm c}^+$ results, comparison to theoretical models will be shown.
| Track | Hadronisation and coalescence |
|---|---|
| Collaboration name | ALICE |
