The $B_\mathrm{c}^+$ meson is observed for the first time in heavy ion collisions. Data from the CMS detector are used to study the production of the $B_\mathrm{c}^+$ meson in lead-lead (PbPb) and proton-proton (pp) collisions at a center-of-mass energy per nucleon pair of $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}} =$ 5.02 TeV, via the $B_\mathrm{c}^+ \to (J/\psi\to\mu^+\mu^-)\mu^+\nu_\mu$ decay. The $B_\mathrm{c}^+$ nuclear modification factor, derived from the PbPb-to-pp ratio of production cross sections, is measured in two bins of the trimuon transverse momentum and of the PbPb collision centrality. The B$_\mathrm{c}^+$ meson is shown to be less suppressed than quarkonia and most of the open heavy-flavor mesons, suggesting that effects of the hot and dense nuclear matter created in heavy ion collisions contribute to its production. This measurement sets forth a promising new probe of the interplay of suppression and enhancement mechanisms in the production of heavy-flavor mesons in the quark-gluon plasma.
The production of Z bosons is studied in the dimuon and dielectron decay channels in PbPb and pp collisions at sqrt(s[NN]) = 2.76 TeV, using data collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC. The PbPb data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of about 150 inverse microbarns, while the pp data sample collected in 2013 at the same nucleon-nucleon centre-of-mass energy has an integrated luminosity of 5.4 inverse picobarns. The Z boson yield is measured as a function of rapidity, transverse momentum, and collision centrality. The ratio of PbPb to pp yields, scaled by the number of inelastic nucleon-nucleon collisions, is found to be 1.06 +/- 0.05 (stat) +/- 0.08 (syst) in the dimuon channel and 1.02 +/- 0.08 (stat) +/- 0.15 (syst) in the dielectron channel, for centrality-integrated Z boson production. This binary collision scaling is seen to hold in the entire kinematic region studied, as expected for a colourless probe that is unaffected by the hot and dense QCD medium produced in heavy ion collisions.
Measurements of the yield and nuclear modification factor, $R_\mathrm{ AA}$, for inclusive jet production are performed using 0.49 nb$^{-1}$ of Pb+Pb data at $\sqrt{s_\mathrm{NN}} = 5.02$ TeV and 25 pb$^{-1}$ of $pp$ data at $\sqrt{s}=5.02$ TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Jets are reconstructed with the anti-$k_t$ algorithm with radius parameter $R=0.4$ and are measured over the transverse momentum range of 40-1000 GeV in six rapidity intervals covering $|y|<2.8$. The magnitude of $R_\mathrm{ AA}$ increases with increasing jet transverse momentum, reaching a value of approximately 0.6 at 1 TeV in the most central collisions. The magnitude of $R_\mathrm{ AA}$ also increases towards peripheral collisions. The value of $R_\mathrm{ AA}$ is independent of rapidity at low jet transverse momenta, but it is observed to decrease with increasing rapidity at high transverse momenta.
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