The production of J/ψ mesons with rapidity 1.5 < y < 4.0 or −5.0 < y < −2.5 and transverse momentum p T < 14 GeV/c is studied with the LHCb detector in proton-lead collisions at a nucleon-nucleon centre-of-mass energy √ s N N = 5 TeV. The J/ψ mesons are reconstructed using the dimuon decay mode. The analysis is based on a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 1.6 nb −1 . For the first time the nuclear modification factor and forward-backward production ratio are determined separately for prompt J/ψ mesons and J/ψ from b-hadron decays. Clear suppression of prompt J/ψ production with respect to proton-proton collisions at large rapidity is observed, while the production of J/ψ from b-hadron decays is less suppressed. These results show good agreement with available theoretical predictions. The measurement shows that cold nuclear matter effects are important for interpretations of the related quark-gluon plasma signatures in heavy-ion collisions.Keywords: Relativistic heavy ion physics, Quarkonium, Heavy quark production, Heavy Ions, Particle and resonance production
A Results in tables 13The LHCb collaboration 19
IntroductionThe suppression of heavy quarkonia production with respect to proton-proton (pp) collisions [1] is one of the most distinctive signatures of the formation of quark-gluon plasma, a hot nuclear medium created in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions. However, the suppression of heavy quarkonia and light hadron production with respect to pp collisions can also take place in proton-nucleus (pA) collisions, where a quark-gluon plasma is not expected to be created and only cold nuclear matter effects, such as nuclear absorption, parton shadowing and parton energy loss in initial and final states occur [2][3][4][5][6][7][8]. The study of pA collisions is important to disentangle the effects of quark-gluon plasma from cold nuclear matter, and to provide essential input to the understanding of nucleus-nucleus collisions. Nuclear effects are usually characterised by the nuclear modification factor, defined as the production cross-section of a given particle in pA collisions divided by that in pp collisions and the number of colliding nucleons in the nucleus (given by the atomic number A),where y is the rapidity of the particle in the nucleon-nucleon centre-of-mass frame, p T is the transverse momentum of the particle, and √ s NN is the nucleon-nucleon centre-of-mass energy. The suppression of heavy quarkonia and light hadron production with respect to pp collisions at large rapidity has been observed in pA collisions [9, 10] and in deuterongold collisions [11][12][13], but has not been studied in proton-lead (pPb) collisions at the TeV -1 -
JHEP02(2014)072scale. Previous experiments [9][10][11][12][13] have also shown evidence that the production crosssection of J/ψ mesons or light hadrons in the forward region (positive rapidity) of pA or deuteron-gold collisions differs from that in the backward region (negative rapidity), where "forward" and "backward" are define...