Heavy-ion physics with the ALICE experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider.

After close to 20 years of preparation, the dedicated heavy-ion experiment A Large Ion Collider Experiment (ALICE) took first data at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) accelerator with proton collisions at the end of 2009 and with lead nuclei at the end of 2010. After a short introduction into the physics of ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions, this article recalls the main design choices made for the detector and summarizes the initial operation and performance of ALICE. Physics results from this first year of operation concentrate on characterizing the global properties of typical, average collisions, both in proton-proton (pp) and nucleus-nucleus reactions, in the new energy regime of the LHC. The pp results differ, to a varying degree, from most quantum chromodynamics-inspired phenomenological models and provide the input needed to fine tune their parameters. First results from Pb-Pb are broadly consistent with expectations based on lower energy data, indicating that high-density matter created at the LHC, while much hotter and larger, still behaves like a very strongly interacting, almost perfect liquid.

Leptonic and charged kaon decay modes of the phi meson measured in heavy-ion collisions at the CERN super proton synchrotron.

We report on results of a measurement of meson production in central Pb-Au collisions at E(lab) = 158A GeV. For the first time in the history of high energy heavy-ion collisions, phi mesons were reconstructed both in the K+K- and the dilepton decay channels in the same experiment. This measurement yields rapidity densities near midrapidity, from the two decay channels, of 2.05 +/- 0.14(stat) +/- 0.25(syst) and 2.04 +/- 0.49(stat) +/- 0.32(syst), respectively. The shape of the measured transverse momentum spectrum is also in close agreement in both decay channels. The data rule out a possible enhancement of the phi yield in the leptonic over the hadronic decay channel of a factor 1.6 or larger at the 95% C.L. This rules out the discrepancy reported in the literature between measurements of the hadronic and dimuon decay channels by two different experiments.

Universal pion freeze-out in heavy-ion collisions.

Based on an evaluation of data on pion interferometry and on particle yields at midrapidity, we propose a universal condition for thermal freeze-out of pions in heavy-ion collisions. We show that freeze-out occurs when the mean free path of pions lambda(f) reaches a value of about 1 fm, which is much smaller than the spatial extent of the system at freeze-out. This critical mean free path is independent of the centrality of the collision and beam energy from the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron to the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider.