Abstract:
The production of non-prompt d0 mesons from beauty-hadron decays was measured at midrapidity (|y| < 0.5) in pb-pb collisions at a nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy of snn = 5.02 tev with the alice experiment at the lhc. Their nuclear modification factor (raa), measured for the first time down to pt = 1 gev/c in the 0–10% and 30–50% centrality classes, indicates a significant suppression, up to a factor of about three, for pt> 5 gev/c in the 0–10% central pb-pb collisions. The data are described by models that include both collisional and radiative processes in the calculation of beauty-quark energy loss in the quark-gluon plasma, and quark recombination in addition to fragmentation as a hadronisation mechanism. The ratio of the non-prompt to prompt d0-meson raa is larger than unity for pt> 4 gev/c in the 0–10% central pb-pb collisions, as predicted by models in which beauty quarks lose less energy than charm quarks in the quark-gluon plasma because of their larger mass. [figure not available: see fulltext.] © 2022, the author(s).