Open heavy-flavour production in pp and Pb-Pb collisions at the LHC, measured with ALICE at central rapidity

Abstract: The ALICE experiment studies nucleus-nucleus collisions at the LHC in order to investigate the properties of QCD matter at extreme energy densities. The measurement of open charm and open beauty production allows to investigate the interaction of heavy quarks with the hot and dense medium formed in high-energy nucleus-nucleus collisions. In particular, in-medium energy loss is predicted to be different for gluons, light quarks and heavy quarks and to depend on the medium energy density and size. ALICE has measured open heavy-flavour particle production at central rapidity in several decay channels in Pb-Pb and pp collisions at sqrt{s_NN} = 2.76 TeV and sqrt{s} = 2.76, 7 TeV respectively. The results obtained from the reconstruction of D meson decays at central rapidity and from electrons from heavy-flavour hadron decay will be presented.