Low-mass dilepton production with ALICE at the LHC

Abstract

The production of low-mass dileptons, including those from ρ, ω and ϕ light vector meson decays, provides key information on the hot and dense state of strongly interacting matter produced in high-energy heavy-ion collisions. In particular, strangeness production can be studied through ϕ meson measurements, while the detailed description of the full dilepton mass spectra down to the kinematic threshold can be used to reveal in-medium modifications of hadron properties and the thermal emission arising from the medium. Measurements in pp and p–A, respectively, provide a reference for the observations in heavy-ion collisions and give insight on soft particle production in cold nuclear matter. Dilepton production is studied with the ALICE apparatus at the LHC both at central (|y|<0.9) and forward (2.5<y<4) rapidity, respectively in the dielectron and dimuon channel. In this contribution, we present recent results on low-mass dimuon production at forward rapidity in Pb–Pb and p–Pb collisions.