dc.description.abstract | We present a Bayesian approach to particle identification (PID) within the ALICE experiment.
The aim is to more effectively combine the particle identification capabilities of its various detectors. After
a brief explanation of the adopted methodology and formalism, the performance of the Bayesian PID ap-
proach for charged pions, kaons and protons in the central barrel of ALICE is studied. PID is performed
via measurements of specific energy loss (dE/dx) and time of flight. PID efficiencies and misidentifica-
tion probabilities are extracted and compared with Monte Carlo simulations using high-purity samples
of identified particles in the decay channels K0S → π−π+, φ → K−K+, and Λ → pπ− in p-Pb collisions
at √sNN = 5.02TeV. In order to thoroughly assess the validity of the Bayesian approach, this method-
ology was used to obtain corrected pT spectra of pions, kaons, protons, and D0 mesons in pp collisions
at
√
s = 7TeV. In all cases, the results using Bayesian PID were found to be consistent with previous
measurements performed by ALICE using a standard PID approach. For the measurement of D0 → K−π+,
it was found that a Bayesian PID approach gave a higher signal-to-background ratio and a similar or larger
statistical significance when compared with standard PID selections, despite a reduced identification effi-
ciency. | en_US |