Heavy Flavour Measurements with ALICE

这个项目的重点是分析在大型强子对撞机(CERN)的p-p和p-pb碰撞中使用ALICE探测器获取的数据。爱丽丝·利物浦小组的主要活动是使用重口味探测器来了解夸克-胶子等离子体(QGP)的性质。重味夸克是在碰撞的初始阶段产生的，QGP中的温度低于产生这些重味夸克-反夸克对的温度。这意味着含有c夸克和b夸克的粒子可以作为QGP演化的有效探测器。对这个项目特别感兴趣的探测器是AC重子，它是质量最小的魅力重子。在爱丽丝探测器中没有直接观察到AC重子，但它的衰变产物是可以观察到的。在大型强子对撞机的高能碰撞中，有大量的背景来自与我们想要测量的衰变无关的随机粒子组合。为了纠正这一点，已经开发了几种先进的数据分析方法，并用于从背景中提取交流信号(使用蒙特卡罗和大型强子对撞机RUN 1数据)。这些方法包括使用标准拓扑切割或多变量机器学习方法。这个博士项目旨在利用并进一步开发这些当前的分析方法，用于分析大型强子对撞机第二次运行(2015-2018)期间获得的数据。

This Project focuses on the analysis of data taken with the ALICE detector in both p-p and p-Pb collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (CERN). The ALICE Liverpool group's main activity is the use of heavy-flavour probes to understand the properties of the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP). Heavy-flavour quarks are created in the initial stages of the collision and the temperature in the QGP is lower than that to create quark-antiquark pairs of these heavy flavours. This means that particles containing c and b quarks can act as effective probes to the evolution of the QGP. The probe of particular interest to this project is the Ac baryon, which is the lowest mass charmed baryon. The Ac baryon is not directly observed in the ALICE detectors but its decay products are. In the high-energy collisions at the LHC, there is a large amount of background contributed from random combinations of particles unrelated to the decay we want to measure. To rectify this, several advanced data analysis methods have been developed and used to extract the Ac signal from the background (with Monte Carlo and LHC Run 1 data). These methods include using standard topological cuts or a multivariate machine learning approach. This PhD project aims to utilise and further develop these current analytical methods for the analysis of data taken during Run 2 (2015-2018) at the LHC.