Measurements of low-p(T) electrons from semileptonic heavy-flavour hadron decays at mid-rapidity in pp and Pb-Pb collisions at root s(NN)=2.A76 TeV


Acharya S., Acosta F. T., Adamova D., Adolfsson J., Aggarwal M. M., Rinella G. A., ...More

JOURNAL OF HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS, vol.2018, no.10, 2018 (SCI-Expanded) identifier identifier identifier

  • Publication Type: Article / Article
  • Volume: 2018 Issue: 10
  • Publication Date: 2018
  • Doi Number: 10.1007/jhep10(2018)061
  • Journal Name: JOURNAL OF HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS
  • Journal Indexes: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Scopus
  • Keywords: Heavy Ion Experiments, QUARK-GLUON PLASMA, CHARGED-PARTICLE PRODUCTION, LARGE TRANSVERSE-MOMENTUM, ENERGY-LOSS, ION COLLISIONS, SUPPRESSION, PERSPECTIVE, PROTONS, MATTER, MESONS
  • Bursa Uludag University Affiliated: No

Abstract

Transverse-momentum (p(T)) differential yields of electrons from semileptonic heavy-flavour hadron decays have been measured in the most central (0-10%) and in semi-central (20-40%) Pb-Pb collisions at TeV. The corresponding production cross section in pp collisions has been measured at the same energy with substantially reduced systematic uncertainties with respect to previously published results. The modification of the yield in Pb-Pb collisions with respect to the expectation from an incoherent superposition of nucleon-nucleon collisions is quantified at mid-rapidity (|y| < 0.8) in the p(T) interval 0.5-3 GeV/c via the nuclear modification factor, R-AA. This paper extends the p(T) reach of the R-AA measurement towards significantly lower values with respect to a previous publication. In Pb-Pb collisions the p(T)-differential measurements of yields at low p(T) are essential to investigate the scaling of heavy-flavour production with the number of binary nucleon-nucleon collisions. Heavy-quark hadronization, a collective expansion and even initial-state effects, such as the nuclear modification of the Parton Distribution Function, are also expected to have a significant effect on the measured distribution.