Measurement of forward-rapidity heavy-flavour muons in proton-proton collisions at [formula omitted] with ALICE

Abstract

We report the first results of the ALICE experiment on heavy-flavour measurements at forward 1 1 In this paper “forward” means in the LHC clockwise stream with respect to the interaction point. rapidity ( − 4 < η < − 2.5 ) in the muonic decay channel. The data have been collected during the proton-proton collisions at s = 7 TeV . In the ALICE program, the heavy-flavour detection in nucleon-nucleon interactions has a central role both as a test of perturbative QCD and as a baseline for the study of matter at high energy densities in heavy-ion collisions. The extraction of the heavy-flavour signal in the inclusive muon spectra requires the subtraction of the contribution from the decay-in-flight of light hadrons and from particles produced in the absorption elements. The details of the analysis and the main results will be discussed in this paper.