Abstract
The production of prompt charmed mesons D0, D+ and D∗+, and their antiparticles, was measured with the ALICE detector in Pb-Pb collisions at the centre-of-mass energy per nucleon pair, \( \sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}} \), of 2.76 TeV. The production yields for rapidity |y| < 0.5 are presented as a function of transverse momentum, p T, in the interval 1–36 GeV/c for the centrality class 0–10% and in the interval 1–16 GeV/c for the centrality class 30–50%. The nuclear modification factor R AA was computed using a proton-proton reference at \( \sqrt{s}=2.76 \) TeV, based on measurements at \( \sqrt{s}=7 \) TeV and on theoretical calculations. A maximum suppression by a factor of 5-6 with respect to binary-scaled pp yields is observed for the most central collisions at p T of about 10 GeV/c. A suppression by a factor of about 2-3 persists at the highest p T covered by the measurements. At low p T (1-3 GeV/c), the R AA has large uncertainties that span the range 0.35 (factor of about 3 suppression) to 1 (no suppression). In all p T intervals, the R AA is larger in the 30-50% centrality class compared to central collisions. The D-meson R AA is also compared with that of charged pions and, at large p T, charged hadrons, and with model calculations.
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The ALICE collaboration., Adam, J., Adamová, D. et al. Transverse momentum dependence of D-meson production in Pb-Pb collisions at \( \sqrt{{\mathrm{s}}_{\mathrm{NN}}}=2.76 \) TeV. J. High Energ. Phys. 2016, 81 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP03(2016)081
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP03(2016)081