Quantum chromodynamics (QCD) is the theory describing the interaction between color charges, quarks and gluons (also called partons). One of its fundamental property is the confinement of the partons into hadrons, the basic components of nuclei.
Under extreme conditions, QCD predicts a phase transition between nuclear matter and a medium where the partons are free to propagate, the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP). This state of matter can be experimentally created in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions at CERN LHC, the world's largest accelerator. A Large Ion Collider Experiment (ALICE) detector is designed to exploit the unique physics potential of LHC.
Quarkonia, bound states of heavy quarks, are ideal particles to caracterize the QGP properties. Their measurement makes it possible to estimate the initial temperature of the medium.
If nucleus-nucleus collisions lead to the formation of a deconfined medium, quarkonium production is expected to be suppressed by the presence of color charges.
To quantify the suppression mechanisms, one needs to compare the production in heavy-ion collisions with respect to proton-proton collisions at the same center-of-mass energy.
In this presentation, detailed analyses of upsilon production at 5 TeV with ALICE are reported.