Open heavy flavour production via semi-leptonic decay muons in lead lead collisions at $\sqrtsnn = 2.76$ \TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Abstract

Measurements of heavy quark production and suppression in ultra-relativistic nuclear collisions probe the interactions of heavy quarks with the hot, dense medium created in the collisions. ATLAS has measured heavy quark production in $\sqrtsnn = 2.76$ \TeV \PbPb collisions via semi-leptonic decays of open heavy flavour hadrons to muons. Results are presented for the per-event muon yield as a function of muon transverse momentum, \pT, over the range of $4 < \pT < 14$ \GeV. The centrality dependence of the muon yields is characterized by the "central to peripheral" ratio, \Rcp. Muon production is suppressed by approximately a factor of two in central collisions relative to peripheral collisions. Within the experimental errors, the observed suppression is independent of muon \pT for all centralities.