Measurement of the production of high-\(p_{\rm T}\) electrons from heavy-flavour hadron decays in Pb–Pb collisions at \(\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}=2.76\) TeV

Abstract

Electrons from heavy-flavour hadron decays (charm and beauty) were measured with the ALICE detector in Pb–Pb collisions at a centre-of-mass of energy \(\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}=2.76\) TeV. The transverse momentum \(p_{\rm T}\) differential production yields at mid-rapidity were used to calculate the nuclear modification factor \(R_{\rm AA}\) in the interval \(3<p_{\rm T}<18\) GeV/\).\). The \(R_{\rm AA}\) shows a strong suppression compared to binary scaling of pp collisions at the same energy (up to a factor of 4) in the 10% most central Pb–Pb collisions. There is a centrality trend of suppression, and a weaker suppression (down to a factor of 2) in semi-peripheral (50–80%) collisions is observed. The suppression of electrons in this broad \(p_{\rm T}\) interval indicates that both charm and beauty quarks lose energy when they traverse the hot medium formed in Pb-Pb collisions at LHC.