Production of muons from heavy-flavour hadron decays at high transverse momentum in Pb–Pb collisions at s NN = 5.02 and 2.76 TeV

摘要

Measurements of the production of muons from heavy-flavour hadron decays in Pb–Pb collisions atsNN=5.02and 2.76 TeV using the ALICE detector at the LHC are reported. The nuclear modification factorRAAatsNN=5.02TeV is measured at forward rapidity (2.57GeV/c). TheRAAshows an increase of the suppression of the yields of muons from heavy-flavour hadron decays with increasing centrality. A suppression by a factor of about three is observed in the 10% most central collisions. TheRAAatsNN=5.02TeV is similar to that atsNN=2.76TeV. The preciseRAAmeasurements have the potential to distinguish between model predictions implementing different mechanisms of parton energy loss in the high-density medium formed in heavy-ion collisions. They place important constraints for the understanding of the heavy-quark interaction with the hot and dense QCD medium.