The international collaboration ALICE (“A Large Ion Collider Experiment”), of which the eponymous research group of the IP2I in Lyon is a member, aims to study nuclear matter in a state of extremely high temperature, where the deconfinement of hadrons (including protons and neutrons) into plasma of quarks and gluons takes place.
Matter is made up of atoms, themselves made up of electrons surrounding a nucleus of protons and neutrons, the latter being formed of quarks, linked by gluons. No quark or gluon has ever been observed in isolation: they appear to be permanently bonded together and confined in composite particles. At temperatures 100,000 times higher than those at the centre of the Sun, they deconform to form a plasma, which would have existed a few microseconds after the Big Bang. This plasma is predicted by the fundamental theory of strong interaction, Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), and its study allows us to understand the ultimate organization of matter subject to strong interaction and the very first moments of the universe.
The LHC collides lead ions to recreate conditions similar to those immediately after the Big Bang and form this quark and gluon plasma. For this infinitely small study, a huge detector has been built at the LHC. It is capable of measuring the particles emitted by the plasma as it expands and cools.
Our group has been involved in this construction and in obtaining major results in this field of physics.
The activities of the ALICE group of the IP2I of Lyon are twofold:
- the analysis of data collected in proton-proton, proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions at the CERN LHC
- participation in the construction and operation of the forward vertex trajectograph, the Muon Forward Tracker
Analysis of data collected in proton-proton, proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions at the CERN LHC
The physics analyses of the ALICE experiment carried out in the Lyon groups cover a wide range of subjects, from the light quark sector u, d, s with the study of the forward production of low mass vector mesons 
and 
in the dimuonic decay channel, to the heavy quarks sector c and b, with the study of the production of the quarkonium states of the 
and 
families. This analytical work has already led to a number of remarkable results, notably through the study of collective phenomena characterizing the evolution of the and mesons, namely the appearance of kinematic correlations between the meson and light hadrons in high multiplicity proton-Pb collisions, and the observation of elliptical flow of the 
meson compatible with zero in Pb-Pb collisions (behavior different from all the other particles studied).
Participation in the construction and operation of the forward vertex trajectograph, the Muon Forward Tracker
The group is also responsible for the construction and operation of the vertex forward trajectograph, the Muon Forward Tracker (MFT), one of the first applications in high energy physics of CMOS silicon pixel sensor technology. The MFT, which will be integrated into the ALICE detector starting with Run3 of the LHC (2021), is designed to enable precise measurement of the details of the vertex region for forward-produced particles, especially muons, whose different topologies and production processes can be studied.
NON-PERMANENTS:
- DOCTORANTS / DOCTORAL STUDENTS:
- I. Laktineh, N. Lumb, R. Kieffer, J.-C. Ianigro, L. Mirabito, et al.. Development of large and very thin GRPCs with new resistive coating and new gas distribution scheme. Technology and Instrumentation in Particle Physics 2011 (TIPP 2011) conference, Jun 2011, Chicago, United States. ⟨in2p3-00972075⟩
- O. StĂ©zowski. Overview of the PARIS Project. EGAN Workshop 2012 (European Gamma and Ancillary Detectors Network), Jun 2011, Orsay, France. ⟨in2p3-01018614⟩
- J. Alcaraz Maestre, S. Alioli, J. R. Andersen, R. D. Ball, A. Buckley, et al.. The SM and NLO Multileg and SM MC Working Groups: Summary Report. 7th Les Houches Workshop on Physics at TeV Colliders, May 2011, Les Houches, France. ⟨hal-00684456⟩
- K. Bennaceur. Halo phenomena in finite many-fermion systems. FUSTIPEN Meeting, May 2011, Caen, France. ⟨in2p3-00740146⟩
- A. Uras. Low mass dimuon production in p-A collisions at \sqrt{s} = 27.5 GeV with NA60. Quark Matter 2011 - 22nd International Conference on Ultra-Relativistic Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions, May 2011, Annecy, France. pp.124180, ⟨10.1088/0954-3899/38/12/124180⟩. ⟨in2p3-00656814⟩
- H. Hansen. Symmetries of QCD and their relations with phases of strongly interacting matter and medium modification of hadrons. Symposium of the HADES Collaboration Meeting XXI, May 2011, Seillac, France. ⟨in2p3-00740159⟩
- R. Chierici. Top quark and ttbar mass measurements at CMS. Workshop on Jet Reconstruction and Spectroscopy at Hadron Colliders, Apr 2011, Pisa, Italy. ⟨in2p3-00967639⟩
- J.-M. Richard. Charmonium coupling form factors to charmed mesons. 4th Workshop of France China Particle Physics Laboratory (FCPPL), Apr 2011, Jinan, China. ⟨in2p3-01011116⟩
- G. Boudoul. Simulation of the Tracker implementation in the electronic trigger at the super-LHC. 4th Workshop of France China Particle Physics Laboratory (FCPPL), Apr 2011, Jinan, China. ⟨in2p3-00967155⟩
- M. Gherrab, N. Millard-Pinard, S. Gavarini, V. Garnier. Synthèse et caractĂ©risation de carbure de titane nanostructurĂ© pour utilisation en conditions extrĂŞmes, Application en tant que matĂ©riau d'enrobage du combustible dans les rĂ©acteurs nuclĂ©aires de GĂ©nĂ©ration IV. JournĂ©e Macodev, Apr 2011, Lyon, France. ⟨in2p3-01018549⟩
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