This thesis presents the first measurement of charmed D0 meson production relative to the reaction plane in Pb–Pb collisions at the center-of-mass energy per nucleon-nucleon collision of √sNN = 2.76 TeV. It also showcases the measurement of the D0 production in p–Pb collisions at √sNN = 5.02 TeV with the ALICE detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The measurement of the D0 azimuthal anisotropy with respect to the reaction plane indicates that low- momentum charm quarks participate in the collective expansion of the high-density, strongly interacting medium formed in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions, despite their large mass. This behavior can be explained by charm hadronization via recombination with light quarks from the medium and collisional energy loss. The measurement of the D0 production in p–Pb collisions is crucial to separate the effect induced by cold nuclear matter from the final- state effects induced by the hot medium formed in Pb–Pb collisions. The D0 production in p–Pb collisions is consistent with the binary collision scaling of the production in pp collisions, demonstrating that the modification of the momentum distribution observed in Pb–Pb collisions with respect to pp is predominantly induced by final-state effects such as the charm energy loss.

This thesis provides a comprehensive view of the physics of charmed hadrons in high-energy proton-proton and heavy-ion collisions. Given their large masses, charm quarks are produced in the early stage of a heavy-ion collision and they subsequently experience the full system evolution probing the colour-deconfined medium called quark-gluon plasma (QGP) created in such collisions. In this thesis, the mechanisms of charm-quark in-medium energy loss and hadronisation are discussed via the measurements of the production of charm mesons with (Ds+) and without (D+) strange-quark content in different colliding systems, using data collected by the ALICE experiment at the CERN LHC. The participation of the charm quark and its possible thermalisation in the QGP are studied via measurements of azimuthal anisotropies in the production of D+ mesons. Finally, the prospects for future measurements with the upgraded ALICE experimental apparatus and with more refined machine learning techniques are presented.

The Chiral Magnetic Wave (CMW) phenomenon is essential to provide insights into the strong interaction in QCD, the properties of the quark-gluon plasma, and the topological characteristics of the early universe, offering a deeper understanding of fundamental physics in high-energy collisions. Measurements of the charge-dependent anisotropic flow coefficients are studied in Pb-Pb collisions at center-of-mass energy per nucleon-nucleon collision sNN---√= 5.02 TeV to probe the CMW. In particular, the slope of the normalized difference in elliptic (v2) and triangular (v3) flow coefficients of positively and negatively charged particles as a function of their event-wise normalized number difference, is reported for inclusive and identified particles. The slope rNorm3 is found to be larger than zero and to have a magnitude similar to rNorm2, thus pointing to a large background contribution for these measurements. Furthermore, rNorm2 can be described by a blast wave model calculation that incorporates local charge conservation. In addition, using the event shape engineering technique yields a fraction of CMW (fCMW) contribution to this measurement which is compatible with zero. This measurement provides the very first upper limit for fCMW, and in the 10-60% centrality interval it is found to be 26% (38%) at 95% (99.7%) confidence level.