Measurement of D-meson production in pp, p-Pb, and Pb-Pb collisions at the LHC with the ALICE detector

Abstract

Heavy quarks are a powerful probe for investigating the properties of the Quark-Gluon Plasma created in heavy-ion collisions, since they are produced in initial hard scattering processes and experience all the stages of the medium evolution. ALICE has measured the production of $\mathrm{D}^0$, $\mathrm{D}^+$, $\mathrm{D}^{*+}$, and $\mathrm{D}_{\mathrm{s}}^+$ mesons at central rapidity in their hadronic decay channels in various collision systems and energies. We present recent results for D-meson production measured by the ALICE Collaboration in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}=7$ and 2.76 TeV, Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_\mathrm{NN}}=2.76$ TeV and p-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_\mathrm{NN}}=5.02$ TeV.