Beauty-jet production in small systems with the ALICE experiment The production of heavy-flavor jets in proton-proton collisions serves as a fundamental test of perturbative QCD, while p-Pb (Pb-Pb) measurements provide information about the effects of the cold (and hot) nuclear matter. Our group plays a key role in several experimental measurements within the ALICE Heavy Flavor Jets and Correlations physics analysis group [1]. One such analysis is the measurement of the b-jet production at √s=5 TeV in pp and p-Pb collisions.

Investigating the underlying event with identified leading processes The event-activity differential investigation of particle production reveals the connection between the leading process and the underlying event. It allows for the study of semi-soft vacuum-QCD effects potentially responsible for collectivity in events with higher activity, such as multiple-parton interactions (MPI). Flavor-dependent studies of these mechanisms can help separate color-charge and mass effects in jet production and fragmentation [1]. We conduct an ALICE measurement of the transverse event-activity dependent D0 meson production.

Particle production as a function of the underlying event The event-activity differential investigation of particle production reveals the connection between the leading process and the underlying event. It allows for the study of semi-soft vacuum-QCD effects potentially responsible for collectivity in events with higher activity, such as multiple-parton interactions (MPI). We investigated the production of charged particles associated with high-pT trigger particles at midrapidity in proton-proton collisions at √s=5.02 TeV in simulations, in function of RT, which is sensitive to multiple-parton interactions (MPI).

Sudden increase in the degrees of freedom in dense QCD matter One of the main challenges in high energy heavy-ion collisions is to simultaneously determine the temperature and the energy density of the matter produced in a collision, and hence the number of thermodynamic degrees of freedom (DOF). We presented the extraction of the temperature by analyzing the charged particle transverse momentum spectra in lead-lead and proton-proton collisions at LHC energies from the ALICE Collaboration using the Color String Percolation Model (CSPM).

Scaling properties of jet structures We studied the structure of jets in proton-proton collisions at LHC energies using Monte Carlo simulations. We demonstrate that the radial jet profiles exhibit scaling properties with charged- hadron event multiplicity over a broad transverse-momentum range. Based on statistically motivated parametrizations of the jet profiles, we proposed that the scaling behavior stems from fundamental statistical properties of jet fragmentation [9]. We also observed that the charged-hadron multiplicity distributions scale with jet momentum (Fig.

Central exclusive production with the CMS experiment We published a paper on the central exclusive and semi-exclusive production of π+π− pairs measured with the CMS detector in pp collisions at center-of-mass energies of √s=5.02 and 13 TeV [1]. The theoretical description of these nonperturbative processes, which have not yet been measured in detail at the LHC, poses a significant challenge to models. The two pions are measured and identified in the CMS silicon tracker based on specific energy loss, whereas the absence of other particles is ensured by calorimeter information.

Development of a novel Proton CT device We participate in the Bergen pCT collaboration, formed for the development of a sampling calorimeter to be used for imaging in cancer therapy. Irradiation of cancer tumors using well-focused hadron beams can be a very effective treatment as the patient receives less unnecessary dose, thus allowing for a deposit of high destructive dose close to the critical organs. Most commonly proton beams are used, but there are investigations with heavier hadrons like Helium [16].

Performance analysis of the CMS Zero Degree Calorimeters (ZDC) We published a paper on the subject [1]. In this paper we present our studies of the CMS ZDC using proton-lead collisions measured in 2016. First, we developed a template fitting method, which can be used to extract accurate values of the ZDC signals in the presence of collisions preceding our main signal. We also improved the Monte Carlo simulation of the ZDC, including the modeling of Cherenkov photons.