D meson-hadron angular correlations in pp and p-Pb collisions with ALICE at the LHC

Abstract

The comparison of angular correlations between charmed mesons and charged hadrons produced in pp, p-Pb and Pb-Pb collisions can give insight into charm quark energy loss mechanisms in hot nuclear medium formed in heavy-ion collisions and can help to spot possible modifications of charm quark hadronization induced by the presence of the medium. The analysis of pp and p-Pb data and the comparison with predictions from pQCD calculations, besides constituting the necessary baseline for the interpretation of Pb-Pb results, can provide relevant information on charm production and fragmentation processes. We present a study of azimuthal correlations between D$^0$ and D$^{\ast +}$ mesons and charged hadrons measured by the ALICE experiment in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 7$ TeV and p-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}} = 5.02$ TeV. D mesons were reconstructed from their hadronic decays at central rapidity and in the transverse momentum range $2 < p_{_{\rm T}} < 16$ GeV/$c$, and they were correlated to charged hadrons reconstructed in the pseudorapidity range $|\eta| < 0.8$.