Measurement of open heavy-flavour production as a function of charged-particle multiplicity with ALICE at the LHC

Heavy quarks are produced in the early stages of ultra-relativistic hadron collisions via hard scatterings and are an important tool for studying different aspects of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) in hadronic collisions. Charged-particle multiplicity gives information on the global characteristics of the event and could be used to characterize particle production mechanisms. In hadronic collisions at Large Hadron Collider (LHC) energies, there is a significant contribution of multi-parton interactions. The measurement of heavy-flavour yields as a function of charged-particle multiplicity gives insight into the mechanisms influencing their production in hadronic collisions at these energies and it is a tool to test the possible influence of multi-parton interactions. Furthermore, the charged-particle multiplicity dependence of open heavy flavours is used to test the ability of QCD theoretical models to describe the data. In ALICE, heavy-flavour production is measured via the hadronic and semi-leptonic decay channels (electrons at central rapidity and muons at forward rapidity). Charged-particle multiplicity is measured at central and forward rapidity. We will present the results on open heavy-flavour production as a function of the charged-particle multiplicity in pp and p–Pb collisions. Results will be compared to quarkonia measurements as well as theoretical model calculations. (paper)