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Measurement of D0 production in jets in Pb-Pb collisions at sNN = 5.02 TeV with ALICE at the LHC

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Author(s):
Antonio Carlos Oliveira da Silva
Total Authors: 1
Document type: Doctoral Thesis
Press: São Paulo.
Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Instituto de Física (IF/SBI)
Defense date:
Examining board members:
Alexandre Alarcon do Passo Suaide; Ivone Freire da Mota e Albuquerque; David Dobrigkeit Chinellato; Airton Deppman; Eduardo de Moraes Gregores
Advisor: Alexandre Alarcon do Passo Suaide
Abstract

Charm quarks are created in the early stages of heavy-ion collisions in hard-scattering processes. Therefore, they are ideal probes of the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP), which is a state of matter where partons contained in hadrons, at high temperatures (150 MeV) or density (about five times the density of ordinary matter), change to a deconfined state of quarks and gluons. The fragmentation of charm quarks can produce D mesons. Jets containing a D meson as one of their constituents can be identified as originating from heavy-quark fragmentation. These jets are a valuable tool to characterize the charm interaction with the QGP. Charmed jets can provide information to the study the mass-dependent energy loss by the measurement of the modification of the charm-jet yield in Pb-Pb collisions with respect to pp collisions as a function of the jet transverse momentum. Moreover, a further insight can be obtained with the measurement of the momentum-fraction distribution, which is of particular interest to investigate the possible influence of the medium in the charm-jet fragmentation. D mesons are reconstructed through an invariant mass analysis of their hadronic decay channels, rejecting the large combinatorial background with topological selections exploiting the relatively large lifetime of D mesons and the particle identification capabilities of the ALICE detector. Jets are reconstructed with the anti-kT algorithm using D-meson candidates and charged tracks. The measurement of the transverse momentum spectrum of jets containing D mesons in Pb-Pb collisions at sNN = 5.02 TeV will be presented. These results lead to new possibilities of probing the QGP properties when compared to baseline measurements. Furthermore, the methods developed can be employed in the study of charm-quark fragmentation functions in heavy-ion collisions. (AU)

FAPESP's process: 12/13236-0 - Correlation measurements between jets and D* mesons at the ALICE experiment at LHC
Grantee:Antonio Carlos Oliveira da Silva
Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate (Direct)