Studies of beauty suppression via nonprompt D${}^0$ mesons in PbPb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}=$ 5.02 TeV

Abstract

The transverse momentum spectra of D${}^0$ mesons from b hadron decays are measured at midrapidity ($|y|$ $<$ $1$) in pp and PbPb collisions at a nucleon-nucleon center of mass energy of 5.02 TeV with the CMS detector at the LHC. The D${}^0$ mesons from b hadron decays are distinguished from prompt D${}^0$ mesons by their decay topologies. In PbPb collisions, the B $\to$ D${}^0$ yield is found to be suppressed in the measured $p_{\mathrm{T}}$ range from 2 to 100 GeV$/c$ as compared to pp collisions. The suppression is weaker than that of prompt D${}^0$ mesons and charged hadrons for $p_{\mathrm{T}}$ around 10 GeV$/c$. While theoretical calculations incorporating partonic energy loss in the quark-gluon plasma can successfully describe the measured B $\to$ D${}^0$ suppression at higher $p_{\mathrm{T}}$, the data show an indication of larger suppression than the model predictions in the range of 2 $<$ $p_{\mathrm{T}}$ $<$ 5 GeV$/c$.

Replaced with the published version. Added the journal reference and the DOI. All the figures and tables can be found at http://cms-results.web.cern.ch/cms-results/public-results/publications/HIN-16-016 (CMS Public Pages)