Speaker
Description
The ALICE detector at the LHC is dedicated to the study of the properties of the hot and dense QCD matter (quark-gluon plasma) produced in nucleus-nucleus collisions at ultra-relativistic energies. The heavy flavor (charm and beauty) quarks, having large masses, are produced in hard-parton scatterings at the early stages of the collisions. Their measurements in pp collisions are an important test of perturbative Quantum Chromodynamics (pQCD) and a reference for measurements in p--Pb and Pb--Pb collision systems. Heavy-flavor measurements in Pb--Pb collisions enable studying the properties of the QGP medium by investigating the interaction of its constituents with the heavy quarks traversing it. Studies in p--Pb collisions allow us to disentangle cold nuclear effects.
This contribution presents an overview of recent ALICE results for open heavy flavors in pp, p--Pb, and Pb--Pb collision systems.
