The Large Hadron Collider at CERN will open a new energy domain for heavy-ion physics. Besides ALICE, the dedicated heavy-ion experiment, also ATLAS and CMS are preparing rich physics programs with nucleus-nucleus collisions. Here we focus on open heavy-flavour and quarkonia studies, among the fields that will most benefit from the high centre-of-mass energy at the LHC. We discuss a few examples of physics issues that can be addressed and we present a selection and comparison (where possible) of results on the expected capability of the three experiments.
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