Studies of the nuclear stopping power in PbPb collisions at 2.76 TeV with CMS

Abstract

Abstract The energy density, d E / d η , in PbPb collisions at 2.76 A TeV nucleus-nucleus center-of-mass energy is measured as a function of pseudorapidity, η , and collision centrality using the CMS detector at the LHC. The very large pseudorapidity coverage of this measurement is used as a powerful constraint for various hadronic interaction models. The CASTOR calorimeter extends the η coverage of CMS up to | η | = 6.6 , which is only 1.4 units away from the beam rapidity for s NN = 2.76 TeV . This is comparable to the most forward measurements at RHIC. A comparison of the centrality dependence of the very forward energy density to that at smaller pseudorapidities is presented and compared to event generator predictions of models for nuclear collisions. The very wide pseudorapidity range of the presented measurement is unique at this center-of-mass energy and the average energy weighted pseudorapidity can be estimated which is compared with results at lower center-of-mass energy. The comparison shows the same energy dependence of the average energy weighted pseudorapidity as seen by RHIC.