Abstract
Heavy quarks (charm and beauty) are an effective tool to investigate the properties of the Quark-Gluon Plasma created in heavy-ion collisions as they are produced in initial hard scattering processes and as they experience all the stages of the medium evolution. The measurement of heavy-flavour production cross sections in pp collisions at the LHC, besides providing a reference for heavy-ion studies, allows one to test perturbative QCD calculations. A brief review of ALICE results on the production of heavy-flavoured hadrons measured from fully reconstructed hadronic decay topologies in pp collisions at = 7 TeV is presented. Furthermore, heavy-flavour production was also studied as a function of the particle multiplicity in pp collisions. This could provide insight into multi-parton scatterings. A measurement of the inclusive J/ψ yield as a function of the charged-particle pseudorapidity density was performed by the ALICE Collaboration at the LHC in pp collisions at = 7 TeV. An increase of the J/ψ yield with increasing multiplicity was observed. In this context, the study of the yield of D mesons as a function of the charged-particle multiplicity could provide a deeper insight into charm-quark production in pp collisions. We will present the first results obtained for prompt D0, D+, and D*+ mesons using hadronic decay channels at midrapidity in pp collisions at = 7 TeV as a function of the charged-particle multiplicity. The prompt D-meson yields as a function of multiplicity are measured in different pT intervals. These yields will be compared to the results obtained for inclusive and non-prompt J/ψ.
Highlights
Heavy quarks are unique probes to study the Quark-Gluon Plasma produced in heavy ion collisions at the LHC
The data are well described by perturbative Quantum Chromodynamics (pQCD) calculation: at the upper limit of the uncertainty band when compared to FONLL and at the lower limit when compared to GM-VFNS predictions
ALICE detector provides excellent tracking, vertexing and particle identification to allow the measurement of charmed mesons via their hadronic decays, over a wide range of transverse momentum
Summary
Heavy quarks are unique probes to study the Quark-Gluon Plasma produced in heavy ion collisions at the LHC. Due to their large masses, they are produced predominantly in hard parton scattering processes, during the initial stages of the collision. They experience the entire evolution of the medium created in the collision and can act as probes of its properties. The study of heavy-quark production as a function of charged particle multiplicity could provide insight into multiple hard parton scattering. It is interesting to remark that the highest multiplicities reached in pp collisions at 7 TeV are similar to those observed in Cu-Cu collisions at RHIC energies
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