Z boson production in Pb+Pb collisions at √sNN=5.02 TeV measured by the ATLAS experiment

Collaboration, ATLAS and Barton, A.E. and Bertram, I.A. and Borissov, G. and Bouhova-Thacker, E.V. and Fox, H. and Henderson, R.C.W. and Jones, R.W.L. and Kartvelishvili, V. and Long, R.E. and Love, P.A. and Muenstermann, D. and Parker, A.J. and Smizanska, M. and Tee, A.S. and Walder, J. and Wharton, A.M. and Whitmore, B.W. and Sanderswood, Izaac and Yexley, Melissa (2020) Z boson production in Pb+Pb collisions at √sNN=5.02 TeV measured by the ATLAS experiment. Physics Letters B, 802: 135262. ISSN 0370-2693

Abstract

The production yield of Z bosons is measured in the electron and muon decay channels in Pb+Pb collisions at √sNN=5.02 TeV with the ATLAS detector. Data from the 2015 LHC run corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 0.49 nb-1 are used for the analysis. The Z boson yield, normalised by the total number of minimum-bias events and the mean nuclear thickness function, is measured as a function of dilepton rapidity and event centrality. The measurements in Pb+Pb collisions are compared with similar measurements made in proton–proton collisions at the same centre-of-mass energy. The nuclear modification factor is found to be consistent with unity for all centrality intervals. The results are compared with theoretical predictions obtained at next-to-leading order using nucleon and nuclear parton distribution functions. The normalised Z boson yields in Pb+Pb collisions lie 1–3σ above the predictions. The nuclear modification factor measured as a function of rapidity agrees with unity and is consistent with a next-to-leading-order QCD calculation including the isospin effect.