10.07.14 16:00
ALICE: recent results and future plans
Harald Appelshäuser (Frankfurt)
The charakterization of the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP), the deconfined state of strongly-interacting matter produced in high-energy collisions of heavy ions, is the main purpose of the ALICE experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). After three years of successful operation with lead and proton beams, many exciting results have been obtained.
In this presentation, recent results will be discussed that play a key role for the study of thermalization and deconfinement in heavy-ion collisions, and for the determination of the QGP properties. Qualitatively new features are observed in Pb-Pb collisions at the LHC as compared to previous measurements at lower collision energies.
New opportunities will arise in the LHC run period 3 starting in 2020 when collision rates of 50 kHz will be offered in Pb-Pb. The full exploitation of the physics potential will be achieved by significant upgrades of the ALICE detector systems, in particular the large Time Projection Chamber (TPC). The ALICE upgrade concept and the status of the detector R&D will be discussed.