Testing perturbative QCD calculations with charm-tagged jets and correlations of charm hadrons with charged particles

Measurements of the properties of jets initiated by a charm quark represent a valuable tool to investigate the properties of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) processes such as the evolution of the heavy-flavour-quark parton shower and hadronisation. Casmir colour effects that are different for quarks and gluons and mass effects driven by the dead cone of heavy quarks, impact the properties of the resultant showers and can be accessed by the study of heavy-flavour tagged jets. In a complementary approach to charm-tagged jets, azimuthal correlations between charmed hadrons and charged particles provide a differential description of charm-jet shape and composition in terms of the transverse momentum of associated particles. Additionally, the comparison of correlation-peak measurements for different charm-hadron species can help to better understand the charm hadronisation mechanism, and investigate the possibility of different mechanisms in addition to in-vacuum fragmentation. The measurement of the longitudinal jet momentum fraction carried by $\Lambda_{\text{c}}^{+}$ baryons compared to $\text{D}^{0}$ mesons in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13.6 TeV, collected during LHC Run 3 by the ALICE experiment is reported. The measurements of the first perturbative splitting identified with the Soft Drop algorithm in $\text{D}^{0}$-meson tagged jets, which are directly related to the charm splitting function are presented. In addition, the new results on azimuthal correlations between strange and non-strange D mesons and charged particles in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13.6 TeV, to investigate the influence of strangeness on the charm hadronisation process are reported. Correlations between charm baryons and charged particles are also studied and compared with those of D mesons. The results are compared with the calculations of state-of-the-art Monte Carlo event generators and theoretical models which implement different charm production and hadronisation mechanisms. Finally, we present new results on $\Lambda_{\text{c}}^{+}$–proton correlations, which probe the angular range of baryon-number conservation in the charm-hadronisation process.