Bernard Hicks

Recent results at RHIC seem to confirm T.D.Lee’s hypothesis that a new form of matter, the quark- gluon plasma (QGP), could be formed in heavy-ion collisions at high energies. Heavy quarks, being formed in the early stages of heavy-ion collisions, form a good probe for the properties of the QGP. The energy loss of heavy quarks as they traverse the medium is predicted to be less than that of the lighter quarks. However, previous measurements of the nuclear modification factor at RHIC indicate that the energy loss of heavy and light quarks is comparable. Thus measurements of the in-medium energy loss of heavy-quarks are of particular interest. In this thesis, a measurement of the differential production cross-section of electrons from the semi-leptonic decay of heavy-flavor quarks in √s = 2.76 TeV pp is presented. This provides a stringent test of perturbative QCD in a new energy regime, and forms a crucial baseline for Pb-Pb collisions where the in-medium energy loss mechanism can be studied.