Impact of fully coherent energy loss on heavy meson production in pA collisions

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that fully coherent energy loss significantly suppresses heavy meson production in proton-nucleus collisions at the LHC, comparable to other nuclear effects, highlighting its importance in accurate modeling.

Contribution

It shows that FCEL alone can account for the observed suppression of D and B mesons in pA collisions, emphasizing its role alongside other nuclear effects.

Findings

FCEL causes suppression comparable to gluon shadowing.

FCEL effects are crucial for understanding hadron production.

Results align with previous quarkonium and light hadron studies.

Abstract

Hadron production in proton-nucleus (pA) collisions was previously shown to be suppressed by medium-induced fully coherent energy loss (FCEL). We show that the quenching of $D$ and $B$ mesons in pPb collisions at the LHC due solely to FCEL is, at least, on par with other nuclear effects such as gluon shadowing or saturation. This is consistent with previous findings for both quarkonium and light hadron production in pA collisions, emphasising that FCEL effects need to be included for a reliable understanding of hadron production measurements in pA collisions.