Open Heavy Flavor Measurements in Heavy Ion Collisions with CMS

Abstract

The measurement of heavy flavor production is a powerful tool to study the properties of the high-density QCD medium created in heavy-ion collisions as heavy quarks are sensitive to the transport properties of the medium and may interact with the matter differently than light quarks. Heavy flavor jets, non-prompt J/ψ (J/ψ from B-hadron decay) and fully reconstructed B mesons have been studied in PbPb collisions at 2.76 TeV and pPb collisions at 5.02 TeV with CMS. Recently, the nuclear modification factor of prompt D0 mesons has been measured in PbPb collisions at 2.76 TeV with CMS as a function of both transverse momentum and collision centrality. These studies show that prompt D0 production is suppressed in semi-central to central PbPb collisions and the suppression is smaller at high pT. A comparison with the RAA of charged particle and non-prompt J/ψ hints a hierarchy of suppression as a function of flavor.