Heavy-ion collisions at the LHC Roland, G.; Šafařík, K.; Steinberg, P.
Progress in particle and nuclear physics,
07/2014, Letnik:
77
Journal Article
Recenzirano
A new era in the study of high-energy nuclear collisions began when the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) provided the first collisions of lead nuclei in late 2010. In the first three years of ...operation the ALICE, ATLAS and CMS experiments each collected Pb–Pb data samples of more than 50μb−1 at sNN=2.76TeV, exceeding the previously studied collision energies by more than an order of magnitude. These data have provided new insights into the properties of QCD matter under extreme conditions, with extensive measurements of soft particle production and newly accessible hard probes of the hot and dense medium. In this review, we provide a comprehensive overview of the results obtained in heavy-ion collisions at the LHC so far, with particular emphasis on the complementary nature of the observations by the three experiments. In particular, the combination of ALICE’s strengths at hadron identification, the strengths of ATLAS and CMS to make precise measurements of high pT probes, and the resourceful measurements of collective flow by all of the experiments have provided a rich and diverse dataset in only a few years. While the basic paradigm established at RHIC — that of a hot, dense medium that flows with a viscosity to shear-entropy ratio near the predicted lower bound, and which degrades the energy of probes, such as jets, heavy-flavours and J/ψ — is confirmed at the LHC, the new data suggest many new avenues for extracting its properties in detail.
The ALICE experiment, dedicated for heavy-ion collisions at the LHC, is taking data with proton–proton collisions since November 2009. This contribution summarizes initial operation and performance ...of the ALICE detector at the LHC as well as first results from pp collisions at 0.9 TeV and 7 TeV. The energy dependence of the charged-particle multiplicity and of the antiproton–proton production asymmetry at mid-rapidity is presented. The strangeness and charm production analysis is discussed.
We discuss the motivation to study heavy-ion collisions at LHC, and the experimental conditions under which the detectors will have to operate. A short description of the ALICE detector under ...construction is given. Physics performance is illustrated on two examples, which will became accessible at LHC energies, jet quenching and heavy-flavour production.
Track reconstruction in high density environment Ivanov, M.; Belikov, I.; Hristov, P. ...
Nuclear instruments & methods in physics research. Section A, Accelerators, spectrometers, detectors and associated equipment,
10/2006, Letnik:
566, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
This article presents the reconstruction algorithm for the ALICE barrel detectors based on Kalman-filtering. The algorithm is able to cope with ambiguous measurements in high-density environments. It ...consists of the following parts: space point localization, track finding and track fitting, performed in parallel with secondary vertex (V0) and kink topology finding.
Midrapidity production of π±, K±, and (¯p)p measured by the ALICE experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider, in Pb-Pb and inelastic pp collisions at √sNN=5.02 TeV, is presented. The invariant ...yields are measured over a wide transverse momentum (pT) range from hundreds of MeV/c up to 20 GeV/c. The results in Pb-Pb collisions are presented as a function of the collision centrality, in the range 0–90%. The comparison of the pT-integrated particle ratios, i.e., proton-to-pion (p/π) and kaon-to-pion (K/π) ratios, with similar measurements in Pb-Pb collisions at √sNN=2.76 TeV show no significant energy dependence. Blast-wave fits of the pT spectra indicate that in the most central collisions radial flow is slightly larger at 5.02 TeV with respect to 2.76 TeV. Particle ratios (p/π, K/π) as a function of pT show pronounced maxima at pT≈3GeV/c in central Pb-Pb collisions. At high pT, particle ratios at 5.02 TeV are similar to those measured in pp collisions at the same energy and in Pb-Pb collisions at √sNN=2.76 TeV. Using the pp reference spectra measured at the same collision energy of 5.02 TeV, the nuclear modification factors for the different particle species are derived. Within uncertainties, the nuclear modification factor is particle species independent for high pT and compatible with measurements at √sNN=2.76 TeV. The results are compared to state-of-the-art model calculations, which are found to describe the observed trends satisfactorily.
Comprehensive results on the production of unidentified charged particles, π±, K±, K$_S^0$, K*(892)0, $p, \bar{p}, ϕ$(1020), Λ, Λ, Ξ-, Ξ+, Ω-, and $\bar{Ω}^+$ hadrons in proton-proton ...(pp) collisions at $ \sqrt{s}$=7 TeV at midrapidity (|y|<0.5) as a function of charged-particle multiplicity density are presented. In order to avoid autocorrelation biases, the actual transverse momentum (pT) spectra of the particles under study and the event activity are measured in different rapidity windows. In the highest multiplicity class, the charged-particle density reaches about 3.5 times the value measured in inelastic collisions. While the yield of protons normalized to pions remains approximately constant as a function of multiplicity, the corresponding ratios of strange hadrons to pions show a significant enhancement that increases with increasing strangeness content. Furthermore, all identified particle-to-pion ratios are shown to depend solely on charged-particle multiplicity density, regardless of system type and collision energy. The evolution of the spectral shapes with multiplicity and hadron mass shows patterns that are similar to those observed in p-Pb and Pb-Pb collisions at Large Hadron Collider energies. The obtained pT distributions and yields are compared to expectations from QCD-based pp event generators as well as to predictions from thermal and hydrodynamic models. These comparisons indicate that traces of a collective, equilibrated system are already present in high-multiplicity pp collisions.
The pseudorapidity density of charged particles, dNch / d η , at midrapidity in Pb-Pb collisions has been measured at a center-of-mass energy per nucleon pair of √ s N N = 5.02 TeV . For the 5% ...most central collisions, we measure a value of 1943 ± 54 . The rise in dNch / d η as a function of √ s N N is steeper than that observed in proton-proton collisions and follows the trend established by measurements at lower energy. The increase of dNch / d η as a function of the average number of participant nucleons, ⟨ N part ⟩ , calculated in a Glauber model, is compared with the previous measurement at √ s N N = 2.76 TeV . A constant factor of about 1.2 describes the increase in dNch / d η from √ s N N = 2.76 to 5.02 TeV for all centrality classes, within the measured range of 0%–80% centrality. The results are also compared to models based on different mechanisms for particle production in nuclear collisions.
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