May 11, 2017; Talk
G.Volpe: An introduction to ALICE at LHC: physics goal and experimental apparatus
D-01069 Dresden
Quantum ChromoDynamics (QCD) is well established as the gauge theory of strong
interactions. However, several of its fundamental aspects are not well understood at
present. There remain important open questions about the parton–hadron transition and
the nature of confinement, and about the nature of QCD matter at high temperature.
Strongly interacting matter at very high temperature and density is expected to exist in a
state called the Quark–Gluon Plasma (QGP), in which quark and gluon degrees of
freedom are liberated, and with properties very different from the hadronic matter we
ordinarily find around us. Such conditions of high temperature and density prevailed in
the early Universe, a few microseconds after its formation. The only means to study this
fundamental state of matter is via the collision of heavy nuclei in the laboratory. In
heavy-ion collisions at ultra-relativistic energies, nuclear matter is heated and brought to values of temperature and density well beyond those required for the creation of QGP.
The ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) apparatus is dedicated to study the Pb-Pb
collisions provided by the LHC. ALICE studies pp and p-Pb collisions as well, that
represent the reference data for Pb-Pb collisions. In this talk, an overview of the ALICE
detectors and of its most important results will be presented.