Measurements of J/psi in Pb-Pb collisions with ALICE at LHC

• Grant number: 17/16882-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: December 01, 2017
• End date: December 31, 2020
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Physics - Nuclear Physics
• Principal Investigator: Marcelo Gameiro Munhoz
• Grantee: Cristiane Jahnke
• Host Institution: Instituto de Física (IF). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 12/04583-8 - High-energy nuclear physics at RHIC and LHC, AP.TEM

Abstract

In this project, we propose the study of Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP) properties via the analysis of J/È production in heavy-ion collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) using the ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) detector. This is the only detector dedicated to studies of heavy-ion collisions at the LHC at CERN (Organisation Européenne pour la Recherches Nucléaires). The LHC recently has run lead-lead (Pb-Pb) collisions at a center-of-mass energy per nucleon pair of 5.02 TeV, which is twice the energy for heavy-ion collisions provided by LHC in previous runs. J/È studies at this new record energy will allow to establish the relationship between the charmonia production and medium interactions models, which still have some open points given the previous measurements. LHC has also run proton-proton (pp) collisions at 13 TeV, which is also a new record energy of hadronic collisions. The production of the heavy-quark pair can be described perturbatively while its hadronisation into quarkonium state is a non-perturbative process. These processes are not fully understood yet and additional experimental data are necessary to further constrain the theoretical production models. Recent ALICE results show an indication that multi partonic interactions (MPI) can also be present in the inclusive J/È production. The inclusive measurements of J/È includes prompt and non-prompt J/È and a separation of this two source can give more insights about the charmonia production mechanism. Since pp measurements are used as reference for Pb-Pb measurements, it is crucial a good understand of the J/È production in this collision system. The J/È production will be studied via dielectrons decay, where the ALICE detector has excellent capabilities.