Two-pion Bose-Einstein correlations in central Pb-Pb collisions at sNN\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}} = 2.76 TeV

The first measurement of two-pion Bose-Einstein correlations in central Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}} = 2.76$ TeV at the Large Hadron Collider is presented. We observe a growing trend with energy now not only for the longitudinal and the outward but also for the sideward pion source radius. The pion homogeneity volume and the decoupling time are significantly larger than those measured at RHIC.Comment: 17 pages, 5 captioned figures, 1 table, authors from page 12, published version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/388

Suppression of charged particle production at large transverse momentum in central Pb-Pb collisions at sNN=2.76\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}} = 2.76 TeV

Inclusive transverse momentum spectra of primary charged particles in Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{_{\rm NN}}}$ = 2.76 TeV have been measured by the ALICE Collaboration at the LHC. The data are presented for central and peripheral collisions, corresponding to 0-5% and 70-80% of the hadronic Pb-Pb cross section. The measured charged particle spectra in $|\eta|<0.8$ and $0.3 < p_T < 20$ GeV/$c$ are compared to the expectation in pp collisions at the same $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}$, scaled by the number of underlying nucleon-nucleon collisions. The comparison is expressed in terms of the nuclear modification factor $R_{\rm AA}$. The result indicates only weak medium effects ($R_{\rm AA} \approx$ 0.7) in peripheral collisions. In central collisions, $R_{\rm AA}$ reaches a minimum of about 0.14 at $p_{\rm T}=6$-7GeV/$c$ and increases significantly at larger $p_{\rm T}$. The measured suppression of high-$p_{\rm T}$ particles is stronger than that observed at lower collision energies, indicating that a very dense medium is formed in central Pb-Pb collisions at the LHC.Comment: 15 pages, 5 captioned figures, 3 tables, authors from page 10, published version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/98

Particle-yield modification in jet-like azimuthal di-hadron correlations in Pb-Pb collisions at sNN\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}} = 2.76 TeV

The yield of charged particles associated with high-$p_{\rm T}$ trigger particles ($8 < p_{\rm T} < 15$ GeV/$c$) is measured with the ALICE detector in Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}$ = 2.76 TeV relative to proton-proton collisions at the same energy. The conditional per-trigger yields are extracted from the narrow jet-like correlation peaks in azimuthal di-hadron correlations. In the 5% most central collisions, we observe that the yield of associated charged particles with transverse momenta $p_{\rm T}> 3$ GeV/$c$ on the away-side drops to about 60% of that observed in pp collisions, while on the near-side a moderate enhancement of 20-30% is found.Comment: 15 pages, 2 captioned figures, 1 table, authors from page 10, published version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/350

Higher harmonic anisotropic flow measurements of charged particles in Pb-Pb collisions at 2.76 TeV

We report on the first measurement of the triangular $v_3$, quadrangular $v_4$, and pentagonal $v_5$ charged particle flow in Pb-Pb collisions at 2.76 TeV measured with the ALICE detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. We show that the triangular flow can be described in terms of the initial spatial anisotropy and its fluctuations, which provides strong constraints on its origin. In the most central events, where the elliptic flow $v_2$ and $v_3$ have similar magnitude, a double peaked structure in the two-particle azimuthal correlations is observed, which is often interpreted as a Mach cone response to fast partons. We show that this structure can be naturally explained from the measured anisotropic flow Fourier coefficients.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, published version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/387

Centrality dependence of \u3c0, K, and p production in Pb-Pb collisions at sqrt[s_{NN}]=2.76 TeV

In this paper measurements are presented of \u3c0\ub1, K\ub1, p, and p(bar) production at midrapidity (|y| < 0.5), in Pb-Pb collisions at 1asNN= 2.76 TeV as a function of centrality. The measurement covers the transverse-momentum (pT ) range from 100, 200, and 300 MeV/c up to 3, 3, and 4.6 GeV/c for \u3c0, K, and p, respectively. The measured pT distributions and yields are compared to expectations based on hydrodynamic, thermal and recombination models. The spectral shapes of central collisions show a stronger radial flow than measured at lower energies, which can be described in hydrodynamic models. In peripheral collisions, the pT distributions are not well reproduced by hydrodynamic models. Ratios of integrated particle yields are found to be nearly independent of centrality. The yield of protons normalized to pions is a factor 3c1.5 lower than the expectation from thermal models

Transverse Momentum Distribution and Nuclear Modification Factor of Charged Particles in p+Pb Collisions at sqrt[s_{NN}]=5.02\u2009\u2009TeV

The transverse momentum (pT) distribution of primary charged particles is measured in minimum bias (non-single-diffractive) p+Pb collisions at 1asNN=5.02 TeV with the ALICE detector at the LHC. The p T spectra measured near central rapidity in the range 0.5<p T<20 GeV/c exhibit a weak pseudorapidity dependence. The nuclear modification factor RpPb is consistent with unity for pT above 2 GeV/c. This measurement indicates that the strong suppression of hadron production at high pT observed in Pb+Pb collisions at the LHC is not due to an initial-state effect. The measurement is compared to theoretical calculations

Charged kaon femtoscopic correlations in pp collisions at sqrts=7 TeV.

Correlations of two charged identical kaons (KchKch) are measured in pp collisions at 1as = 7 TeV by the ALICE experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). One-dimensional KchKch correlation functions are constructed in three multiplicity and four transverse momentum ranges. The KchKch femtoscopic source parameters R and are extracted. The KchKch correlations show a slight increase of femtoscopic radii with increasing multiplicity and a slight decrease of radii with increasing transverse momentum. These trends are similar to the ones observed for and K0s K0s correlations in pp and heavy ion collisions. However at high multiplicities, there is an indication that the one-dimensional correlation radii for charged kaons are larger than those for pions in contrast to what was observed in heavy-ion collisions at the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider

J/\u3c8 Elliptic Flow in Pb-Pb Collisions at sqrt[s_{NN}]=2.76\u2009\u2009TeV

We report on the first measurement of inclusive J/\u3c8 elliptic flow v2 in heavy-ion collisions at the LHC. The measurement is performed with the ALICE detector in Pb-Pb collisions at 1asNN=2.76 TeV in the rapidity range 2,5<y<4,0. The dependence of the J=c v2 on the collision centrality and on the J/\u3c8 transverse momentum is studied in the range 0 64pT 64 10 GeV/c. For semicentral Pb-Pb collisions at 1asNN=2.76 TeV, an indication of nonzero v2 is observed with a largest measured value of v2=0.116 \ub1 0.046 (stat) \ub1 0:029 (syst) for J/\u3c8 in the transverse momentum range 2 64 pT 64 4 GeV/c. The elliptic flow measurement complements the previously reported ALICE results on the inclusive J/\u3c8 nuclear modification factor and favors the scenario of a significant fraction of J/\u3c8 production from charm quarks in a deconfined partonic phase