Measurement of D-meson production and flow in Pb-Pb collisions with ALICE at the LHC

Open-charmed mesons are unique tools to study the properties of the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) formed in ultra-relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions. The nuclear modification factor (RAA) and elliptic flow (v2) of D0, D+, D*+, and Ds+ mesons were measured by the ALICE Collaboration in Pb-Pb collisions at sNN = 5.02TeV. The D-meson RAA provides information on the charm-quark interactions with the medium and the charm-quark energy loss. The D-meson elliptic flow at low transverse momentum (pT) gives insight into the participation of charm quarks in the collective expansion of the system and their possible in-medium thermalization. At high pT, the v2 is sensitive to the path-length dependence of parton energy loss. The role of the recombination mechanism is investigated measuring the pT-differential yield ratios between D-meson species with and without strange-quark content. Finally, the coupling of charm quarks to light quarks of the underlying medium is examined applying the Event-Shape Engineering (ESE) technique to the nonstrange D-meson elliptic flow.