Year: 2026
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: The ALICE experiment at the CERN LHC has undergone a major upgrade program for Run 3, enabling high-precision studies of the quark-gluon plasma and rare probes in high-multiplicity environments. Key detector improvements, including the new Inner Tracking System (ITS2) with 12.8 billion pixels and a first layer at 22 mm from the nominal interaction point, and a GEM-based Time Projection Chamber, facilitate data taking at a Pb-Pb interaction rate of 50 kHz at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}} = 5.36$ TeV and, in pp, selective rates up to 1 MHz at $\sqrt{s}=13.6$ TeV. The O$^2$ computing framework enables online/offline integration and selective data storage through an offline trigger program, called skimming, compressing datasets to 4.5% of their original size. In 2022-2024, ALICE collected over 4.7 trillion pp events, 72.1 pb${}^{-1}$, and more than 80 PB of Pb-Pb data, 3 nb$^{-1}$, with more than 96% availability. The detector upgrades and new algorithms have resulted in a factor 2-5 improvement in track impact parameter resolution and a factor of 7 gain in distance of closest approach resolution for weak strange decays, significantly enhancing the experiment's capability to reconstruct short-lived particles and rare decay channels.
DOI: 10.22323/1.499.0120
Author: Felix Schlepper
Institution: European Organization for Nuclear Research
Language: English
Subfield: Nuclear and High Energy Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
OpenAlex ID: W7119495442
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