Measurements of heavy-flavour nuclear modification factor and elliptic flow in Pb--Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm{NN}}}$ = 2.76 TeV with ALICE

Abstract

Heavy quarks, i.e. charm and beauty, are sensitive probes of the medium produced in high-energy heavy-ion collisions. They are produced in the early stage of the collisions and are expected to experience the whole collision evolution interacting with the medium constituents via both elastic and inelastic processes. The nuclear modification factor ($R_{\rm AA}$) and the elliptic flow ($v_{2}$) are two of the main experimental observables that allow us to investigate the interaction strength of heavy quarks with the medium. The ALICE collaboration measured the production and elliptic flow of open heavy-flavour hadrons via their hadronic and semi-leptonic decays to electrons at mid-rapidity and to muons at forward rapidity in Pb--Pb collisions. Recent results will be discussed, and model calculations including the interaction of heavy quarks with the hot, dense, and deconfined medium will be confronted with the data.