Optimisation of the B^0 reconstruction in Pb-Pb collisions at √s_{NN}= 5.5 TeV using the upgraded ALICE detector

Abstract

The Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP) is a state of matter predicted by Quantum Chromodynamics. At sufficiently high temperatures and (energy) densities, QCD predicts that the constituent particles of hadronic matter are no longer confined to their hadrons and behave as asymptotically free particles within the plasma.Since 2010, CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, near Geneva, has been producing this state of matter by colliding highly energetic, dense atomic nuclei and observing the resulting ‘debris’. In this thesis, we study the reconstruction of the B^0 meson through its hadronic decay channel, produced in lead-lead colissions with center of mass energies of √sNN = 5.5 TeV, in the upgraded ALICE detector as is planned to be implemented during the LHC’s second long shutdown. We focus on the improvements that can be made on cuts of the D^{∗+} invariant mass in transverse momentum intervals [1,3], [3, 5], [5, 8], [8, 16] and [16, 24] GeV/c, with respect to the current detector and explore additional cuts to improve the B^0 invariant mass signal. Unfortunately, the cuts laid out in this thesis do not improve the statistical significance enough to reach observation levels. Further studies of cuts are required