Suppression of high transverse momentum D mesons in central Pb-Pb collisions at \( \sqrt{{{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}}}=2.76\;\mathrm{TeV} \)

Abstract

The production of the prompt charm mesons D0, D+, D*+, and their antiparticles, was measured with the ALICE detector in Pb-Pb collisions at the LHC, at a centre-of-mass energy \( \sqrt{{{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}}}=2.76\;\mathrm{TeV} \) per nucleon-nucleon collision. The p t-differential production yields in the range 2 < p t < 16 GeV/c at central rapidity, |y| < 0.5, were used to calculate the nuclear modification factor R AA with respect to a proton-proton reference obtained from the cross section measured at \( \sqrt{s}=7\;\mathrm{TeV} \) and scaled to \( \sqrt{s}=2.76\;\mathrm{TeV} \). For the three meson species, R AA shows a suppression by a factor 3–4, for transverse momenta larger than 5 GeV/c in the 20% most central collisions. The suppression is reduced for peripheral collisions.

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Correspondence to F. Prino.

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ArXiv ePrint: 1203.2160

See page 29 for the list of collaboration members.

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The ALICE Collaboration., Abelev, B., Adam, J. et al. Suppression of high transverse momentum D mesons in central Pb-Pb collisions at \( \sqrt{{{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}}}=2.76\;\mathrm{TeV} \) . J. High Energ. Phys. 2012, 112 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP09(2012)112

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Keywords

  • Heavy Ions