Recent charmonium measurements in Pb–Pb collisions with ALICE

State Key Laboratory of Particle Detection and Electronics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China

Published online: 26 June 2024

Abstract

Charmonia have long been recognized as a valuable probe of the nuclear matter in extreme conditions, the strongly interacting medium created in heavy-ion collisions known as quark-gluon plasma (QGP). At LHC energies, the (re-)generation process due to the abundantly produced charm quarks, was found to considerably affect measured charmonium observables. Comprehensive production measurements of charmonia, including both ground and excited states, are crucial to discriminate among different (re-)generation scenarios assumed in theoretical calculations. In addition, the spin-alignment of charmonia can be affected by the strong magnetic field and the large angular momentum of the medium in non-central heavy-ion collisions. Finally, the non-prompt charmonium, grants a direct insight into the nuclear modification factor of beauty hadrons, which is expected to be sensitive to the energy loss experienced by the ancestor beauty quarks inside the QGP. In this contribution, newly published results of inclusive, prompt and non-prompt J/ψ production, obtained in Pb–Pb collisions at √S_NN = 5.02 TeV, are presented. Recently published results of J/ψ polarization with respect to the event plane at forward rapidity in Pb–Pb collisions at √S_NN = 5.02 TeV are also discussed. Results are compared to available model calculations.