Anisotropic flow studies with identified particles with ALICE: a tool to probe different stages of a heavy-ion collision

<!--HTML--><p>Anisotropic flow studies play a crucial role in the characterization of the nature of the quark gluon plasma (QGP) created in collisions of heavy ions at ultra-relativistic energies. These studies rely on measuring the coefficients<em> v</em>_<em>n</em> of the Fourier expansion of the azimuthal particle distribution. They have been essential in establishing that the QGP is a strongly coupled, almost perfect fluid. In this seminar, I review the latest results from measurements of elliptic<em> (v</em>_<em>2</em>), triangular <em>(v</em>_<em>3</em>), quadrangular (<em>v</em>_<em>4</em>) and pentagonal (<em>v</em>_<em>5</em>) flow of identified particles at the LHC measured with ALICE. I will discuss how these results allow us to gain insight into the transport properties of the QGP and the initial conditions of a heavy-ion collision. In addition, they reveal the role of different hadronisation mechanisms as well as the highly dissipative hadronic rescattering phase to the development of <em>v_n</em>.</p>