Speaker
Description
The ALICE experiment investigates the properties of the quark--gluon plasma (QGP) created in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions. Two of the most prominent signatures of QGP formation are the collective hydrodynamic expansion of the produced medium and the energy loss of high-energy partons traversing the medium, known as jet quenching. Measurements performed in high-multiplicity p--Pb and pp collisions have revealed flow-like signatures but have not provided unambiguous evidence for jet quenching. This raises important questions about the relationship between system size and the onset of QGP effects.
The recent light-ion collision runs at the LHC provide a unique opportunity to bridge the gap between p--Pb and Pb--Pb collisions and to investigate how QGP signatures evolve with system size. This contribution presents the first ALICE measurements of inclusive $\pi^0$ production in OO and p--O collisions, as well as inclusive jet production and hadron--jet correlations in OO collisions. The inclusive observables exhibit a suppression consistent with partonic energy loss in the produced medium, while no significant modification is observed in hadron--jet correlations within the current experimental precision. The different sensitivities of these observables will be discussed.
