Measurement of electrons from heavy-flavour decays in pp and Pb-Pb collisions with ALICE at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper reports measurements of electrons from heavy-flavour decays in proton-proton and lead-lead collisions at the LHC, providing insights into heavy-quark production and medium effects in high-energy nuclear collisions.

Contribution

It presents new measurements of heavy-flavour decay electrons in pp and Pb-Pb collisions, including the relative contributions from charm and beauty hadrons, and compares results to theoretical models.

Findings

Electrons from heavy-flavour decays are measured at different energies.

The relative beauty-to-heavy-flavour electron yield is extracted.

The nuclear modification factor in Pb-Pb collisions is analyzed.

Abstract

The ALICE experiment has measured at mid-rapidity electrons from heavy-flavour decays in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 2.76 and 7 TeV, and in Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}$ = 2.76 TeV. In pp collisions, electrons from charm-hadron and from beauty-hadron decays are identified by applying cuts on displaced vertices. The relative yield of electrons from beauty-hadron decays to those from heavy-flavour decays is extracted using electron-hadron correlations. Results are compared to pQCD-based calculations. In Pb-Pb collisions, the $p_{\rm T}$ dependence of the nuclear modification factor of electrons from heavy-flavour decays is presented in two centrality classes. The status on the analysis of electrons from beauty-hadron decays is reported in Pb-Pb collisions, in view of the measurement of the corresponding nuclear modification factor.