https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/202327605002
Physics programme of the ALICE 3 experiment for the LHC Runs 5 and 6
Goethe-Universität,
Max-von-Laue-Straße 1,
60438
Frankfurt am Main, Germany
* e-mail: rbailhache@ikf.uni-frankfurt.de
Published online: 1 March 2023
Ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions are used to study the physics of strongly interacting matter under extreme conditions, similar to those of the early universe. In such collisions a deconfined state of quarks and gluons, the quark-gluon plasma (QGP), is formed. Nuclear collisions at the LHC provide access to the highest-temperature, longest-lived experimentally accessible QGP. After three years of Long Shutdown and intensive installation of detector and accelerator upgrades, ALICE is about to take data at a peak Pb–Pb collision rate of 50 kHz to further characterize the properties of the QGP. Even after the ambitious scientific programme for the upcoming Runs 3 and 4, open questions will remain. Therefore, a next-generation LHC heavy-ion experiment ALICE 3 is proposed for the 2030s. It should give access to next-level measurements of electromagnetic probes and heavy-flavour hadrons, including multi-charm states and exotic hadrons, inaccessible in the LHC Runs 3 and 4.
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2023
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
