Azimuthal correlations of heavy-flavor hadron decay electrons with charged particles in pp and p-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}$ = 5.02 TeV
ALICE Collaboration

TL;DR
This study measures azimuthal correlations between heavy-flavor decay electrons and charged particles in pp and p-Pb collisions at 5.02 TeV to understand heavy quark fragmentation and hadronization, comparing results to Monte Carlo models.
Contribution
First detailed comparison of heavy-flavor electron correlations in pp and p-Pb collisions at 5.02 TeV, analyzing cold nuclear matter effects and validating Monte Carlo models.
Findings
Correlation structures are similar in pp and p-Pb collisions.
Results are consistent with Monte Carlo predictions.
No significant cold nuclear matter effects observed.
Abstract
The azimuthal () correlation distributions between heavy-flavor decay electrons and associated charged particles are measured in pp and pPb collisions at TeV. Results are reported for electrons with transverse momentum GeV/ and pseudorapidity . The associated charged particles are selected with transverse momentum GeV/, and relative pseudorapidity separation with the leading electron . The correlation measurements are performed to study and characterize the fragmentation and hadronization of heavy quarks. The correlation structures are fitted with a constant and two von Mises functions to obtain the baseline and the near- and away-side peaks, respectively. The results from pPb collisions are compared with those from pp collisions to study the effects of cold nuclear…
| Source | Correlation distribution | NS yield | AS yield | NS width | AS width |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Electron track selection | 1% | 1% | 1% | 0% | 0% |
| Electron identification | 3–5% | 2–4% | 3–6% | 2–6% | 4–7% |
| Background electron | 1% | 1% | 2% | 1% | 1% |
| Associated particle selection | 1–2% | 1–2% | 1–3% | 1–3% | 1–3% |
| Mixed-event correction | 1% | 1% | 1% | 0% | 0% |
| Fit routine / Baseline estimation | 0.001–0.02 () | 5–8% | 8–9% | 10% | 10% |
| Total (correlated sources) | 1–2% | ||||
| Total (uncorrelated sources) | 3–5% | ||||
| Total | 6–9% | 9–11% | 10–12% | 11–13% |
| Source | Correlation distribution | NS yield | AS yield | NS width | AS width |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Electron track selection | 1–2% | 1% | 1% | 1% | 1% |
| Electron identification | 2–4% | 4% | 4% | 2–4% | 4–5% |
| Background electron | 1% | 1% | 1% | 1% | 1% |
| Associated particle selection | 2–3% | 2–4% | 2–4% | 1–4% | 2% |
| Mixed-event correction | 1% | 1% | 1% | 0% | 0% |
| Fit routine / Baseline estimation | 0.0005–0.02 () | 4–5% | 6–7% | 11% | 11% |
| Total (correlated sources) | 2–3% | ||||
| Total (uncorrelated sources) | 2–5% | ||||
| Total | 6–8% | 8–9% | 11–13% | 12% |
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\PHyear2023 \PHnumber024 \PHdate27 February
\ShortTitleHeavy-flavor decay electron–charged particle correlations in pp, pPb collisions
\CollaborationALICE Collaboration††thanks: See Appendix C for the list of collaboration members \ShortAuthorALICE Collaboration
The azimuthal () correlation distributions between heavy-flavor decay electrons and associated charged particles are measured in pp and p–Pb collisions at TeV. Results are reported for electrons with transverse momentum and pseudorapidity . The associated charged particles are selected with transverse momentum , and relative pseudorapidity separation with the leading electron . The correlation measurements are performed to study and characterize the fragmentation and hadronization of heavy quarks. The correlation structures are fitted with a constant and two von Mises functions to obtain the baseline and the near- and away-side peaks, respectively. The results from p–Pb collisions are compared with those from pp collisions to study the effects of cold nuclear matter. In the measured trigger electron and associated particle kinematic regions, the two collision systems give consistent results. The distribution and the peak observables in pp and p–Pb collisions are compared with calculations from various Monte Carlo event generators.
1 Introduction
In high-energy hadronic collisions, heavy quarks (charm and beauty) are mainly produced in hard parton scattering processes. Due to the large momentum transfer characterizing these processes, their inclusive production cross sections can be calculated in the framework of perturbative quantum chromodynamics (pQCD) [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. The production cross sections of several open heavy-flavor hadrons and of their decay leptons in pp collisions were measured at both mid- and forward-rapidity at the LHC [6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27], and are described by pQCD calculations [28, 29, 30] with large theoretical uncertainties. The charm-hadron production cross section calculations in the pQCD frameworks are based on the factorization of parton distribution functions (PDF), the partonic cross section, and the fragmentation function. Recent measurements of charm-baryon production at midrapidity in pp collisions [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42] are not reproduced by pQCD calculations and event generators adopting a fragmentation model tuned on data. A better description of these measurements can be obtained by models including hadronization mechanisms such as quark coalescence [43], additional color reconnections among parton fragments [44], or by including enhanced feed-down from higher-mass charm-baryon states within a statistical hadronization approach [45], where the higher-mass excited charm-baryon states are predicted by the Relativistic Quark Model [46] but not yet measured. More differential measurements are needed to better understand the fragmentation (parton showering) and hadronization of heavy quarks. Two-particle angular correlations originating from heavy-flavor particles allow such processes to be characterized.
The typical structure of a two-particle angular correlation distribution of high transverse-momentum () trigger particles with associated charged particles features a “near-side” (NS) peak at and an “away-side” (AS) peak at , extending over a wide pseudorapidity range. The NS peak is mainly induced by particles emerging from the fragmentation of the same parton that produced the trigger particle. The AS peak is related to the fragmentation of the other parton produced in the hard scattering. Here, is the difference in pseudorapidity between the trigger and associated particles. The peaks lie on top of an approximately flat continuum extending over the full range [47]. At leading order (LO) accuracy in QCD, heavy quark–antiquark pairs are produced back-to-back in azimuth [48]. At next-to-leading order (NLO), the correlation shapes can significantly differ from such a topology [48, 49]. Gluon radiation of heavy quarks can smear the back-to-back topology and broaden the near- and away-side peaks. In the gluon splitting process, the two heavy quarks can be produced with a small opening angle, depending on the of the gluon and the mass of the produced quark, generating two sprays of hadrons that can partially overlap, leading to a broader near-side peak. In the flavor excitation process [49], the heavy-quark pairs can be significantly separated in rapidity, and the hadrons from the opposite quark with respect to the trigger particle induce a nearly flat contribution to the distribution. The correlation measurements provide insight into heavy-flavor jet properties at low transverse momentum. By varying the interval of the trigger and associated particles, the correlation measurements allow the details of jet fragmentation to be studied, such as the jet angular profile and the momentum distribution of the particles produced in the fragmentation of the hard parton.
The azimuthal correlation distributions of prompt D mesons and charged particles were measured by the ALICE Collaboration in pp collisions at and 13 TeV for of the D mesons up to 36 and associated charged particles up to 3 [47, 50, 51]. The measurements were compared with Monte Carlo (MC) simulations with different event generators, like PYTHIA [52, 53, 54], HERWIG [55, 56], EPOS [57, 58], and POWHEG coupled with PYTHIA8 for the parton shower and hadronization (POWHEG+PYTHIA8) [59, 60]. A substantial difference among the generators was observed, with PYTHIA8 and POWHEG+PYTHIA8 providing the best description of the measured observables. These differences can be ascribed to the specific implementation of features such as hard-parton scattering matrix elements, parton showering, hadronization algorithm, and underlying event generation, affecting the correlation functions of heavy-flavor hadrons and charged particles. Measuring the correlation distribution between heavy-flavor decay electrons and charged particles grants a substantially larger sample of correlation pairs, compared to measurements of D mesons and charged particle azimuthal correlations [50, 47]. This allows a significant extension of the range of associated particles and can provide a more complete picture of the heavy quark fragmentation. In addition, electrons originating from beauty-hadron decays (b (c ) e) dominate the heavy-flavor hadron decay electron spectrum () at high ( ) [61]. Hence, probing large enough trigger electron transverse momenta enables the study of the correlation function of particles originating from beauty-hadron decays, and provides information on the different correlation structures for charm and beauty quarks. This additional information can be used to further constrain the MC simulations. These advantages come at the price of an additional smearing introduced in the correlation function, due to the non-zero angle between the trigger electron direction and the direction of the parent heavy-flavor hadron before its decay. The momentum of the electron could also be further away from the quark momentum as compared to that of the parent hadron due to its decay kinematics.
In proton–nucleus (p–A) collisions, several cold nuclear-matter effects can influence the production, fragmentation, and hadronization of heavy quarks [5]. In the initial state, the parton distribution functions (PDFs) are modified in bound nucleons as compared to free nucleons. This feature is described by phenomenological parameterizations referred to as nuclear PDFs (nPDFs) [62, 63, 64]. When the production process is dominated by gluons at low Bjorken-, the nucleus can be described by the Color-Glass Condensate (CGC) effective theory as a coherent and saturated gluonic system [65, 66, 67, 68]. The CGC predicts momentum correlations in the initial state, that would impact the angular correlations of the produced heavy-quark pairs. Partons can also undergo multiple elastic, inelastic, and coherent scatterings, due to the presence of the nucleus in the initial state [69, 70] and to possible parton interactions in the high-density environment in the final state, particularly in collisions with large charged-particle multiplicity. These effects can be studied by measuring modifications in the angular shape or in the associated-particle peak yields of the angular correlation distributions of heavy-flavor particles with charged hadrons [47, 50]. Measurements of azimuthal correlations of prompt D mesons and charged hadrons in p–Pb collisions by the ALICE collaboration [47, 50], showed that the near- and away-side peaks of the correlation distribution are consistent with those measured in pp collisions in the same kinematic region. Employing heavy-flavor decay electrons as trigger particles in place of prompt D mesons allows studying the impact of cold-nuclear-matter effects for a wider associated particle range, as well as to investigate their impact on the beauty-quark fragmentation and hadronization.
In heavy-ion collisions, a strongly-interacting matter consisting of deconfined quarks and gluons, the quarkgluon plasma (QGP), is produced [71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 5]. In the presence of the QGP, high- partons lose energy via medium-induced gluon radiation and collisions with the medium constituents [76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81]. These interactions cause a modification of the heavy-quark fragmentation and induce a broadening of the emerging jets and a softening of their constituents [82, 83]. Two-particle angular correlations have been extensively used to search for remnants of the radiated energy and to probe the medium response to the high- parton. The recent measurement of angular correlations between D mesons and charged particles in Au–Au collisions by the STAR Collaboration [84], shows a significant modification of the near-side peak width and associated yield, which increases from peripheral to central collisions. Measurements of angular correlations between electrons from heavy-flavor hadron decays and charged particles by the PHENIX Collaboration show modifications of the away-side peak yield and width in Au–Au collisions compared to pp collisions [85]. For future studies of heavy-flavor hadron correlations in heavy-ion collisions at the LHC, similar measurements in pp and p–Pb collisions are crucial to serve as reference [86].
In this article, ALICE measurements of the azimuthal correlations between electrons from heavy-flavor hadron decays with associated charged particles in pp collisions at center-of-mass energy TeV and p–Pb collisions at center-of-mass energy per nucleon–nucleon collision TeV are reported. The correlation distributions are measured for trigger electrons originating from heavy-flavor hadron decays in the range and associated charged particles in the range , the latter granting a significantly higher reach compared to previously published correlation measurements of D mesons with charged particles [50, 47]. The correlation distributions for trigger electron in the range and are also measured in order to study correlation shapes in kinematic ranges where the electrons are dominantly produced by charm- and beauty-hadron decays, respectively.
The article is organized as follows - in Sec. 2, the ALICE apparatus, its main detectors used in the analyses, and the data samples are reported. The complete analysis procedure is described in Sec. 3. The systematic uncertainties associated with the measurements are discussed in Sec. 4. The analysis results are presented and discussed in Sec. 5. The article is briefly summarized in Sec. 6.
2 Experimental apparatus and data samples
The ALICE apparatus consists of a central barrel, covering the pseudorapidity region , a muon spectrometer with coverage, and forward- and backward-pseudorapidity detectors employed for triggering, background rejection, and event characterization. A complete description of the detector and an overview of its performance are presented in Refs. [87, 88]. The central-barrel detectors used in the analysis are the Inner Tracking System (ITS), the Time Projection Chamber (TPC), and the electromagnetic calorimeters (EMCal and DCal). They are embedded in a large solenoidal magnet that provides a maximum magnetic field of T parallel to the beam direction. The ITS [89] consists of six layers of silicon detectors, with the innermost two composed of Silicon Pixel Detectors (SPD). The ITS was used to reconstruct the primary vertex and the charged particle tracks. The TPC [90] is a gaseous chamber capable of three-dimensional reconstruction of charged-particle tracks, and is the main tracking detector of the central barrel. Moreover, it enables charged-particle identification via the measurement of the particle specific energy loss (dd) in the detector gas. The EMCal and DCal detectors [91, 92] are shashlik-type sampling calorimeters consisting of alternate layers of lead absorber and scintillator material. The EMCal covers ranges of in pseudorapidity and () in azimuth. The DCal is located azimuthally opposite the EMCal, with a coverage of and () and and (). For the remaining part of this article, EMCal and DCal will be together referred to as EMCal, as they are part of the same detector system, used for electron identification. Two scintillator arrays, the V0 detector [93], placed on each side of the interaction point (with pseudorapidity coverage and ) were utilized for triggering and offline rejection of beam-induced background events. The minimum bias trigger was defined requiring coincident signals in both scintillator arrays of the V0 detector. In p–Pb collisions, the contamination from beam-induced background interactions and electromagnetic interactions was further removed with the information of the Zero Degree Calorimeters (ZDC) [94], located along the beam line at 112.5 m on both sides of the interaction point. A T0 detector [95], composed of two arrays of quartz Cherenkov counters, covering an acceptance of and , was employed to determine the luminosity together with the V0 detector.
The results presented in this paper were obtained using minimum bias triggered data recorded with the ALICE detectors during the LHC Run 2 from pp collisions at TeV and from p–Pb collisions at TeV. Pile-up events containing two or more primary vertices were rejected using an algorithm based on the detection of multiple vertices reconstructed from track segments in the SPD. In order to obtain a uniform acceptance of the detectors, only events with a reconstructed primary vertex within cm from the center of the detector along the beam line were considered for both pp and p–Pb collisions. The number of selected pp and p–Pb events are about 800M and 546M, respectively, corresponding to integrated luminosities of nb*-1* [96] and [97].
3 Analysis overview
The measurements of two-particle azimuthal correlations between electrons from heavy-flavor hadron decays (trigger) and charged (associated) particles were obtained from the correlation distributions of all identified electrons after subtracting the contributions which do not originate from heavy-flavor hadron decays. Effects from the limited two-particle acceptance and detector inhomogeneities were corrected using the event-mixing technique. The per-trigger correlation distributions were corrected for the associated-particle reconstruction efficiency. They were not corrected for the trigger-electron efficiency, as the efficiency was found to be independent, and the correction factor would cancel with the per-trigger normalization. The properties of the correlation distribution in , peak yields and widths, were obtained by applying a fit to the corrected distribution. A detailed description of the above mentioned analysis procedures is provided in the following sections. The analysis technique is the same in both pp and p–Pb measurements (unless specified otherwise in the text). Throughout this paper, the term “electron" refers to both electrons and positrons.
3.1 Electron identification and associated-particle reconstruction
Electrons with transverse momentum in the interval and 0.6 were selected using similar criteria as those discussed in Ref. [6]. Tracks were required to have at least one hit in any of the two SPD layers in order to reduce the contamination of electrons from photon conversions in the detector material. In order to reject secondary electrons [98], produced in interactions with the detector material or from weak decays of long-lived particles, the tracks were required to have a distance of closest approach to the primary vertex of less than 1 cm along the beam axis and 0.5 cm in the transverse plane. To ensure the selection of high-quality tracks, electron tracks were required to have a minimum of 70 crossed pad rows in the TPC (out of 159) and a minimum fraction of 0.8 of found space points relative to the maximum value, driven by the track direction [99]. The particle identification employed a selection on dd inside the TPC and on the energy deposited in the EMCal detector. The discriminant variable used for the TPC detector is the deviation of dd from the parameterized Bethe–Bloch expectation value for electrons [100], expressed in terms of dd resolution, . An asymmetric selection of was applied as the background contamination is higher for negative . Additionally, electrons were identified and separated from hadrons using the information from the EMCal detector, where is the energy of the EMCal cluster (deposited by the particle while crossing the detector) [101, 6], and is the momentum of the track measured by the TPC, along with a condition on the elliptical shape of the EMCal cluster, [101]. The electron sample was obtained by selecting candidates with , as expected for electrons, while hadrons have lower values, and with . The lower threshold on removes contamination caused by neutrons hitting the readout electronics.
Associated particles were defined as all charged primary particles [98] with pseudorapidity and . Reconstructed tracks were required to have a minimum of 60 crossed pad rows in the TPC (out of 159) and a minimum fraction of 0.6 of found space points relative to the expected maximum considering the track position in the detector geometry [99]. Additional requirements on the distance of closest approach to the primary vertex of less than 1 cm along the beam axis and 0.5 cm in the transverse plane were applied. The associated particles were also required to have a smaller than the trigger electron . This condition induces a kinematic bias for the regions where the trigger and associated ranges overlap, that can be reproduced by simulations and model predictions.
3.2 Azimuthal correlation distribution and mixed-event correction
The two-dimensional correlation distribution as a function of azimuthal angle difference () and pseudorapidity difference () between electron and charged particles, , was computed for the interval , as well as the two intervals and , and for five intervals of associated particles between 1 and 7 ( , , , , and ). For each kinematic interval, the correlation distributions were corrected for the limited pair acceptance and for the detector inhomogeneities using the event-mixing technique [102] as shown in Fig. 11 in Appendix A. The mixed-event correlation distribution, , was obtained by correlating electrons in an event with charged particles from other events with similar multiplicity and primary-vertex position along the beam direction. The distribution obtained from the mixed events features a triangular-like shape as a function of , due to the limited coverage of the detector, and is approximately flat as a function of . Any non-flatness in would be due to -dependent detector inefficiencies and inhomogeneities. At , the trigger and associated particle experience the same detector effects and the per-trigger correlation distribution is thus not affected. This property can be used to obtain the normalization factor, , for the mixed event distribution, defined as the average number of counts in the range and .
The mixed-event corrected correlation distribution, ddd), labeled as , was obtained as the ratio of the correlation distribution from the same event to the mixed event distribution, scaled by , i.e.,
[TABLE]
The two-dimensional correlation distribution was subject to significant statistical fluctuations, due to the limited size of the heavy-flavor decay electron sample, especially at large values. To grant larger precision to the results, the mixed-event corrected azimuthal correlation distribution was integrated over in the range to obtain a one-dimensional distribution.
3.3 Background subtraction
The hadron contamination in the selected electron sample was estimated by considering tracks identified as hadrons using . The distribution of hadrons was scaled to match the electron-candidate distribution in the interval , away from the electron signal region, similar to the procedure discussed in Ref. [103]. The contamination from charged hadrons was estimated to be around at = 4 increasing to about at 16 in both pp and p–Pb collisions. The hadron contamination in the azimuthal distribution of the inclusive electron sample was obtained using the correlation distributions of trigger particles with , which was scaled to match the estimated hadron contamination. It was then subtracted from the inclusive electron (InclE) correlation distribution.
The selected electrons are composed of signal electrons originating from heavy-flavor hadron decays (HFe), and background electrons. The main background source is constituted by Dalitz decays of neutral mesons ( and ) and photon conversions in the detector material, which produce electron–positron pairs with low invariant mass, peaked around zero. The background electrons were identified using an invariant-mass technique [104, 105], where each selected electron was combined with oppositely-charged partner electrons, obtaining unlike-sign (ULS) pairs and calculating their invariant mass (). The partner electrons were selected by applying similar but looser track-quality and particle-identification criteria than those used for selecting the signal electrons, in order to increase the efficiency of finding the partner [105, 106]. Electron–positron pairs from the background have a small invariant mass, while random combinations including heavy-flavor decay electrons forming a pair with other electrons gives a wider invariant-mass distribution. This combinatorial contribution was estimated from the invariant-mass distribution of like-sign electron (LS) pairs. The distributions of electrons composing ULS and LS pairs, and , respectively, were obtained. The background contribution was then evaluated by subtracting the LS distribution from the ULS distribution in the invariant mass region . The efficiency of finding the partner electron, referred to as the tagging efficiency () from here on, was estimated using MC simulations. In the pp and p–Pb analyses, the MC sample was obtained using PYTHIA 6.4.25 event generator [52], with the Perugia 2011 tune [107], and HIJING 1.36 [108] generators, respectively. They will be referred to as PYTHIA6 and HIJING in the following. The generated particles in all MC samples were propagated through the ALICE apparatus using GEANT 3.21.11 [109]. In order to increase the statistical precision of the tagging efficiency, and meson samples with a flat shape, generated with PYTHIA6, were embedded in the simulated events. The biased shape was corrected by applying a weight to reproduce the measured spectra as described in [103, 110]. The tagging efficiency for pp (p–Pb) collisions was about () at = 4 , increasing to about () for . The correlation distribution of background electrons was corrected by the tagging efficiency and subtracted from the inclusive electron distribution, that was already corrected for the hadron contamination, to obtain the azimuthal distribution of electrons from heavy-flavor hadron decays (),
[TABLE]
Contributions from other sources, such as decays of and kaons, are negligible in the ranges considered in this analysis [104].
The azimuthal correlation distribution of electrons from heavy-flavor hadron decays and charged particles has to be corrected for the inefficiencies in the reconstruction of the associated particles and for the contamination of secondary particles in the associated particle sample. The reconstruction efficiency for charged primary particles was obtained using a different MC sample without any embedded particles using PYTHIA6 [52] and HIJING [108] generators for pp and p–Pb collisions, respectively. The efficiency obtained was in the range 86–90% (85–92%) in the interval for pp (p–Pb) collisions.
The amount of contamination from secondary particles [98] was also estimated using the same MC simulations, and shows values in the range 2–4% in pp collisions and 4–6% in p–Pb collisions, for the interval considered. The fully-corrected azimuthal-correlation distribution was divided by the number of electrons originating from heavy-flavor hadron decays (), to obtain a per-trigger normalization, where is expressed as
[TABLE]
3.4 Characterization of the azimuthal distribution
In order to quantify the properties of the measured azimuthal correlation, the following fit function was used
[TABLE]
It is composed of two von Mises functions, to model circular data, describing the NS and AS peaks, and a constant term, , describing the baseline, which is a free parameter. The terms and in the von Mises function are the measure of concentration of NS and AS peak, respectively, where is analogous to the variance , and is the zeroth-order modified Bessel function evaluated at . The parameters and represent the integral of the near- and away-side peaks, respectively. By symmetry considerations, the means of the NS and AS peaks are fixed to and , respectively. The baseline represents the physical minimum of the distribution. The width () of the peaks is given by
[TABLE]
where is the first-order modified Bessel function evaluated at . The per-trigger yields of the NS and AS peaks were obtained by integrating the bin counts in the ranges and , respectively, after subtracting the baseline value from the distribution.
4 Systematic uncertainties
The correlation distribution and the per-trigger NS and AS yields and widths are affected by systematic uncertainties, related to the procedures used for electron-track selection, identification and subtraction of the hadron contamination, background-electron subtraction, associated-particle efficiency correction, mixed-event correction, and fitting routine applied to the correlation distribution. The uncertainties from each of these sources were estimated separately, by varying the selection criteria or by using an alternative approach to the one described in the previous section. For each variation, its effect on the NS and AS peak yields and widths was obtained by reevaluating these observables after fitting and subtracting the baseline of the resulting correlation distribution. The uncertainties were computed separately for each trigger electron and associated particle range. The systematic uncertainties on the correlation distribution from associated-particle efficiency correction and mixed-event correction are considered as correlated in . The remaining sources are considered as uncorrelated in . A summary of the systematic uncertainties of the correlation distribution, NS and AS yields and widths for are reported in Tables 1 and 2 for pp and p–Pb collisions, respectively. The correlated and uncorrelated uncertainties are separately reported for the distribution, and the total uncertainty from all sources is reported for the peak yields and widths.
Possible biases related to the specific track quality selection for electrons used in the analysis were studied by varying the selection criteria [6]. An uncertainty of 1–2% on the correlation distribution was obtained as a function of for in both collision systems. For the NS and AS yields, an uncertainty in the range 1–2% was estimated. The uncertainty from track selection on the NS and AS widths was found to be negligible.
The uncertainty due to the electron identification using the TPC and EMCAL signals was estimated by varying the selection criteria for , , and . The chosen variations change the efficiency by a maximum of 20%. A total uncertainty from these sources of 2–5% was obtained for the correlation distribution as a function of in pp and p–Pb collisions, for . The resulting uncertainties ranged between 2% and 6% for the NS and AS yields, and between 2% and 7% for the NS and AS widths.
The contribution from background electrons was estimated using the invariant-mass method. The systematic uncertainty of the procedure, mainly affecting the average tagging efficiency, was obtained by varying the selection criteria of the partner electron tracks, including the minimum and the invariant-mass window of the electron–positron pairs. The variation affects the tagging efficiency by 5%. A resulting systematic uncertainty of 1–2% was obtained as a function of on the correlation distribution, the peak yields, and their widths for in pp and p–Pb collisions.
The uncertainty related to the specific selection of associated particles was estimated by varying the charged track selection criteria, including a requirement of a hit in one of the two SPD layers of the ITS, and varying the selection on the distance of closest approach, which affects the secondary particle contamination. This uncertainty is considered correlated in . For , uncertainties of 1–2% and 2–3% were obtained for the correlation distribution in pp and p–Pb collisions, respectively. For NS and AS yields, an uncertainty of 1–3% and 1–4% was estimated for pp and p–Pb collisions, respectively. Uncertainties of less than 3% and 4% were obtained for the NS and AS widths in pp and p–Pb collisions, respectively.
Effects induced by the limited detector acceptance and its local inhomogeneities were corrected using the mixed-event technique. The normalization factor, , was varied by taking the integrated yield over the full range for . A correlated uncertainty in of 1% was obtained for the correlation distribution and the peak yields in pp and p–Pb collisions, respectively. No uncertainty was assigned for the NS and AS widths.
The distribution can be affected in case of a non-zero of HFe and charged particles. As there are no previous measurements of HFe in minimum bias pp and p–Pb collisions, a conservative estimate was obtained using the measurements in 0–20% central p–Pb collisions in Ref. [111]. The inclusion of has an impact of less than 1% on the baseline and peak yields, and does not modify the NS and AS widths.
Several checks were performed to study the stability of the fit to the correlation distributions. Alternative functions, i.e., a Gaussian and a generalized Gaussian, were used to fit the NS and AS peaks instead of the von Mises function. Alternative fits were also performed fixing the baseline value to the average of the points in the transverse region, defined as , to study its stability given statistical fluctuations. In place of the default bin counting procedure, the NS and AS yields were obtained as the integral of the fit functions in the range and . The overall systematic uncertainty was calculated by taking the maximum variation of the results. The uncertainty from the baseline estimation on the correlation distribution is quoted as absolute numbers affecting all bins by the same value. The uncertainty of the NS and AS yields and width varies in the range 4–9% and 10–11% for pp and p–Pb collisions, respectively, for .
Similar procedures were followed to estimate the systematic uncertainties from the above mentioned sources on the correlation distribution, NS and AS yields and widths for and . The uncertainty values were found to be similar to those obtained for in both collision systems.
5 Results
5.1 Comparison of the results in pp and p–Pb collisions
The azimuthal-correlation distributions for with trigger electron in the interval and for different associated particle ranges together with their fit functions are shown in Fig. 1 (for selected ranges) for pp (top panels) and p–Pb (bottom panels) collisions. The correlated systematic uncertainties, from the associated particle selection and mixed-event correction, are reported as text for each interval. The baseline is shown by the horizontal green line. The absolute systematic uncertainty of the baseline estimation is shown as a solid box at rad. The near- and away-side peaks are well described by the von Mises fit function in all ranges. While the baseline contribution is higher in p–Pb collisions (due to the larger charged-particle multiplicity), its absolute value reduces with increasing in both pp and p–Pb collisions. As a large fraction of the baseline is from the underlying event processes, the pairs contributing to it are dominated by low particles.
To compare the NS and AS peaks of the correlation distribution between pp and p–Pb collisions, the baseline-subtracted distributions from the two collision systems are shown together in Fig. 2, for and for different ranges. It can be seen that the peak heights of the NS and AS decrease with increasing . A tendency for a more pronounced collimation of the NS peak with increasing is visible. The profile of the correlation peaks is consistent in pp and p–Pb collisions within the statistical and systematic uncertainties. This indicates that cold-nuclear matter effects do not impact heavy-quark fragmentation and hadronization in the measured range, in minimum bias collisions. This observation is consistent with previous measurements of D-meson correlations with charged particles [50, 47].
To perform a quantitative comparison of the correlation peaks between pp and p–Pb collisions, the per-trigger NS and AS peak yields (first row) and widths (third row) are shown in Fig. 3, superimposed for the two collision systems, as a function of for . The ratios between pp and p–Pb yields (second row) and widths (fourth row) are also shown in this figure. The systematic uncertainties on the ratio of the yields and widths were obtained by considering all sources except for the baseline estimation as uncorrelated between pp and p–Pb collisions. The partially correlated uncertainty of the baseline estimation, obtained by using different fit functions, was estimated on the ratio. The total uncertainty was obtained by taking the quadratic sum of the correlated and uncorrelated uncertainties. While the NS and AS yields decrease with increasing for both pp and p–Pb collisions, the measured yields are consistent within uncertainties between the two collision systems for all the ranges, as can be seen in the ratio panels of Fig. 3. The decrease in yields with increasing can be understood considering that the heavy quarks have, on average, a hard fragmentation into heavy-flavor hadrons. As the remaining energy of heavy quarks is limited, it is far more likely that the associated particles accompanying the decay electron are preferentially produced at lower . The NS width values tend to decrease with increasing , with a value of about 0.3 at 1 and narrowing to a value of roughly 0.15 at 6 , with a significance of about , for both pp and p–Pb collisions. The significance is calculated on the difference between the widths in the lowest and highest intervals, taking into account both statistical and systematic uncertainties. The AS widths are independent of , and have a value of about 0.5. The NS peak distribution is closely connected to the fragmentation of the jet containing the trigger particle. The narrowing of the NS width with increasing indicates that higher particles tend to be closer to the jet-axis, whose direction can be approximated by the trigger electron. This is in turn related to higher emissions from the heavy quark being more collinear to it. The AS peak exhibits a lower sensitivity to the fragmentation of a specific heavy quark, as it can contain particles produced via the fragmentation of heavy quarks originating from processes, including next-to-leading order, that are not azimuthally back-to-back. These processes may have different relative fractions for different of heavy quarks. In the case of gluon splitting, the AS peak can also include particles originating from the recoil gluon, which are not directly associated with the heavy quarks produced in the event. Even in back-to-back processes, the correlation between the transverse momentum of the trigger electron and that of the opposite-side heavy quark, responsible for generating the AS peak through fragmentation, is significantly weaker than for the near-side peak. The NS and AS widths are similar in pp and p–Pb collisions, as can be seen in the ratio plots.
5.2 Comparison with predictions from MC event generators
The near- and away-side peaks of the azimuthal-correlation distribution in pp and p–Pb collisions are compared with predictions from different MC event generators. This allows verifying the implementation of the processes of charm- and beauty-quark production, fragmentation, and hadronization, which have an impact on the observables studied in this paper. The models used to compare the measurement in pp collisions are PYTHIA8 with the Monash tune [112, 52, 53, 44] and EPOS 3.117 [57, 58]. The PYTHIA8 event generator is widely used in particle physics, as it provides an accurate description of high-energy collisions. It is capable of generating both hard and soft interactions, initial and final-state parton showers, particle fragmentation, and multi-partonic interactions. It also incorporates color reconnection mechanisms to rearrange color connections between quarks and gluons during hadronization. The prediction of these models for correlations of D mesons with charged particles can be found in Refs. [50, 47]. The p–Pb measurements are compared with PYTHIA8 Angantyr [113, 114] and EPOS 3.117 [57, 58] models. The Angantyr [113, 114] model is used to simulate ultra-relativistic p–Pb collisions with the PYTHIA8 event generator. As PYTHIA8 does not natively support collisions involving nuclei, this feature is implemented in the Angantyr model, which combines several nucleon–nucleon collisions to build a proton–nucleus (p–A) or nucleus–nucleus (A–A) collision. In this model, some modifications are made over the dynamics of pp collisions. The Angantyr model improves the inclusive definition of collision types of the FRITIOF model [115, 116]. In this model, a projectile nucleon can interact with several target nucleons where one primary collision looks like a typical pp non-diffractive (ND) collision. However, other target nucleons may also undergo ND collisions with the projectile. The Angantyr model treats secondary ND collisions as modified single-diffractive (SD) interactions. For every p–A or A–A collision, nucleons are distributed randomly inside a nucleus according to a Glauber formalism similar to the one described in Ref. [117]. This model is able to correctly reproduce final-state observables of heavy-ion collisions, i.e., multiplicity and distributions [118]. As collectivity is not incorporated in this model, its predictions serve as a baseline for studying observables sensitive to collective behavior in p–A and A–A systems. For PYTHIA8 simulations, the correlation distributions for electrons from charm- and beauty-hadron decays are obtained separately, and summed after weighting their relative fractions based on FONLL calculations [119, 120, 30, 61].
The EPOS3 event generator is largely used for the description of ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions. It employs a core-corona description of the fireball produced in these collisions: in the “core", its inner part, a quark–gluon plasma is formed, which follows a hydrodynamic behavior, while in the external regions of the “corona" the partons fragment and hadronize independently. A study of radial flow performed with the EPOS3 event generator in proton–proton collisions at = 7 TeV [121] has shown that the energy density reached in such collisions is large enough to grant the applicability of the hydrodynamic evolution to the core of the collision.
In the models, the azimuthal correlation function of trigger electrons from charm- and beauty-hadron decays with charged particles is evaluated using the same prescriptions applied for data analysis in terms of kinematic and particle-species selections. The peak properties of the correlation functions are obtained by following the same approach employed in data, i.e., by fitting the distributions with two von Mises functions and a constant term.
In Figs. 4 and 5, the baseline-subtracted azimuthal-correlation distribution measured in pp and p–Pb collisions, reflected in the range, is compared with predictions from PYTHIA8 and EPOS3 generators for in three different ranges. The comparison for the remaining ranges is shown in Appendix B. From this qualitative comparison, both MC generators give a good overall description of the data in all the intervals, even though the EPOS3 predictions show some deviation from the measured NS and AS peaks in the highest interval. The peak yields and widths extracted from the measured distribution are also compared with model predictions in Figs. 6 and 7 for pp and p–Pb collisions, respectively. From here on, PYTHIA8/Angantyr will be used to refer to PYTHIA8 Monash simulations in pp collisions and PYTHIA8 Angantyr simulations in p–Pb collisions together. PYTHIA8/Angantyr simulations provide NS and AS yields decreasing with increasing and are consistent with the data within statistical and systematic uncertainties. The NS widths simulated using PYTHIA8/Angantyr decrease with increasing , which are consistent with the data in both collision systems. The AS widths show a slightly decreasing trend with that is consistent with data within statistical and systematic uncertainties in both collision systems. The NS and AS yields predicted by the EPOS3 model qualitatively describe the data within statistical and systematic uncertainties in pp collisions. In p–Pb collisions, the NS yield is overestimated at high while the AS yield is consistent with data within statistical and systematic uncertainties. The EPOS3 simulations overestimate the NS widths and underestimate the AS widths for all ranges in pp and p–Pb collisions.
5.3 Dependence of the correlation distribution on the
The relative fractions of electrons produced by charm- and beauty-hadron decays have a strong dependence [61]. The fraction of electrons from beauty-hadron decays at = 4 accounts for about 40% of the HFe yield, increasing to 60–70% for . A dependence of the correlation distribution on the flavor of the quark from which the trigger electron originates can be expected, due to the different fragmentation of charm and beauty quarks and different fraction of LO and NLO processes involved in their production. The correlation distributions for electrons from a given quark flavor can also have a trigger-particle dependence due to the different energy of the original parton, and different relative contribution of LO and NLO production processes for the hard scattering producing the parton. These effects are studied by measuring the correlation distributions for trigger electrons in the ranges and , where the latter range is dominated by electrons from beauty-hadron decays. The azimuthal correlation distributions for these two ranges are presented in Appendix A. The NS and AS yields and widths for the two intervals are obtained following the same procedure described in Sec. 3.
The comparisons of the yields (first row) and widths (third row) for the two bins are shown in Figs. 8 and 9 for pp and p–Pb collisions, respectively. The per-trigger NS and AS yields are systematically higher for the range compared to the values obtained for , for both pp and p–Pb collisions. The ratio between the and yields is shown in the second row of Figs. 8 and 9. It can be observed that the yield is higher for the higher interval, and the ratio increases from 1.3 at low to in the highest interval, for both pp and p–Pb collisions. This can be explained by considering that higher- electrons are typically produced by more energetic heavy quarks, and the additional parton energy on average leads to a larger number of associated fragmentation particles.
While the NS width values decrease with , they are similar for the two trigger electron ranges. The AS widths are also observed to be similar for the two trigger electron ranges and to have an almost flat trend with . It should be noted that the kinematic bias induced due to the condition of affects the correlation distributions for the two trigger electron ranges differently. While none of the correlation distributions for higher interval are affected by the bias, the distributions for and would miss some associated particles because of the selection condition.
The NS and AS yields and widths of the correlation distributions as a function of for the two ranges are compared with PYTHIA8/Angantyr and EPOS3 MC simulations for pp and p–Pb collisions. The PYTHIA8/Angantyr predictions describe the data within uncertainties for both ranges. The NS and AS yields from EPOS3 are consistent with data for both intervals. The trend of NS width from EPOS3 is slightly flatter as a function of compared to that of the data. Similar to what was observed for , the NS width is overestimated, while the AS width is underestimated compared to data for both ranges. The ratio of the yields and widths of the two ranges are well described by both MC event generators.
To understand the effect of the different charm and beauty fragmentation on the observed dependence, the correlation distributions were obtained for electrons from charm- and beauty-hadron decays separately for the two intervals using PYTHIA8 MC simulations. The NS and AS yields and widths of the correlation distributions for electrons from charm- and beauty-hadron decays, and their ratios to the combined ones (HFe), are shown in Fig. 10. For both intervals, the NS yields for trigger electrons from beauty-hadron decays are lower than those from charm-hadron decays, by about 5% for the first interval, with a tendency for an increased difference for larger , about 40% for the last range. This can be expected due to the harder fragmentation of beauty quarks to beauty hadrons compared to that of charm quarks, with less energy remaining for the production of other particles in the parton shower. This indicates that the yield increase at higher observed in Figs. 8 and 9 is largely due to the higher energy of the initial heavy quark. The NS and AS widths of the correlation distributions decrease with increasing for both charm- and beauty-hadron decays, but the widths for electrons from beauty-hadron decays are wider than for electrons from charm-hadron decays for both intervals. These two opposing effects lead to similar widths for the two intervals in Figs. 8 and 9.
6 Summary
Measurements of azimuthal-correlation functions of heavy-flavor hadron decay electrons with charged particles in pp and p–Pb collisions at TeV have been reported. The correlation distributions were obtained for trigger electrons in the range , and for different associated particle ranges between 1 and 7 . The azimuthal distributions were fitted with a constant and two von Mises functions in order to characterize the near- and away-side peaks.
The evolution of the near- and away-side peaks of the correlation functions in pp and p–Pb collisions is found to be similar in all the considered kinematic ranges. This suggests that the modification of the fragmentation and hadronization of heavy quarks due to cold-nuclear-matter effects is indistinguishable within the current precision of the measurements. The extracted near- and away-side per-trigger yields and widths in pp and p–Pb collisions are presented as a function of associated particle , which provide access to the momentum distributions of the particles produced in the fragmentation of the hard parton, and allow for a differential study of the jet angular profile. The per-trigger yields decrease with increasing and are consistent between pp and p–Pb collisions. While the near-side width tends to decrease with increasing , the away-side width does not show a pronounced trend with for both collision systems. The distributions, per-trigger yields, and widths in pp and p–Pb collisions are compared with predictions from PYTHIA8 (with Monash tune for pp and using the Angantyr model for p–Pb collisions), and EPOS3 Monte Carlo event generators. The PYTHIA8 predictions provide the best description of the data for both yields and widths of the near- and away-side peaks. For the current implementation of the EPOS3 model, the yields are similar to those obtained from data, while the near- and away-side widths are overestimated and underestimated, respectively.
The relative fractions of electrons from charm- and beauty-hadron decays have a strong dependence. This feature was exploited by studying the correlation distribution for the kinematic regions, and , where the latter range is dominated by beauty-hadron decays.
For both collision systems studied, the per-trigger yields are systematically larger for the range compared to the interval due to the larger energy of the initial heavy quark, which allows for the production of more particles in the parton shower. This effect dominates over the increased beauty-origin contribution of the trigger electrons in the range, which according to PYTHIA8 studies are characterized by lower correlation peak yields than those of electrons originating from charm. The near- and away-side widths are observed to be similar for both trigger electron ranges, for pp and p–Pb collisions. PYTHIA8 studies indicates that this is due to competing effects, where the larger boost of the initial heavy quark leads to a stronger collimation of the peaks with increasing for both charm- and beauty-origin contributions, compensating the broader peak widths for trigger electrons originating from beauty-hadron decays, whose contribution increases with .
The reported results constitute a reference for future measurements in Pb–Pb collisions at the same center-of-mass energy. The study of the modifications of the correlation functions in Pb–Pb collisions in the presence of QGP can provide a deeper understanding of heavy-quark dynamics inside the hot QCD medium [86].
Acknowledgements
The ALICE Collaboration would like to thank all its engineers and technicians for their invaluable contributions to the construction of the experiment and the CERN accelerator teams for the outstanding performance of the LHC complex. The ALICE Collaboration gratefully acknowledges the resources and support provided by all Grid centres and the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG) collaboration. The ALICE Collaboration acknowledges the following funding agencies for their support in building and running the ALICE detector: A. I. Alikhanyan National Science Laboratory (Yerevan Physics Institute) Foundation (ANSL), State Committee of Science and World Federation of Scientists (WFS), Armenia; Austrian Academy of Sciences, Austrian Science Fund (FWF): [M 2467-N36] and Nationalstiftung für Forschung, Technologie und Entwicklung, Austria; Ministry of Communications and High Technologies, National Nuclear Research Center, Azerbaijan; Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos (Finep), Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) and Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Brazil; Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science, within the National Roadmap for Research Infrastructures 2020-2027 (object CERN), Bulgaria; Ministry of Education of China (MOEC) , Ministry of Science & Technology of China (MSTC) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), China; Ministry of Science and Education and Croatian Science Foundation, Croatia; Centro de Aplicaciones Tecnológicas y Desarrollo Nuclear (CEADEN), Cubaenergía, Cuba; Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic, Czech Republic; The Danish Council for Independent Research | Natural Sciences, the VILLUM FONDEN and Danish National Research Foundation (DNRF), Denmark; Helsinki Institute of Physics (HIP), Finland; Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique (CEA) and Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules (IN2P3) and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), France; Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) and GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH, Germany; General Secretariat for Research and Technology, Ministry of Education, Research and Religions, Greece; National Research, Development and Innovation Office, Hungary; Department of Atomic Energy Government of India (DAE), Department of Science and Technology, Government of India (DST), University Grants Commission, Government of India (UGC) and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), India; National Research and Innovation Agency - BRIN, Indonesia; Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), Italy; Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI, Japan; Consejo Nacional de Ciencia (CONACYT) y Tecnología, through Fondo de Cooperación Internacional en Ciencia y Tecnología (FONCICYT) and Dirección General de Asuntos del Personal Academico (DGAPA), Mexico; Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO), Netherlands; The Research Council of Norway, Norway; Commission on Science and Technology for Sustainable Development in the South (COMSATS), Pakistan; Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Peru; Ministry of Education and Science, National Science Centre and WUT ID-UB, Poland; Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information and National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF), Republic of Korea; Ministry of Education and Scientific Research, Institute of Atomic Physics, Ministry of Research and Innovation and Institute of Atomic Physics and University Politehnica of Bucharest, Romania; Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic, Slovakia; National Research Foundation of South Africa, South Africa; Swedish Research Council (VR) and Knut & Alice Wallenberg Foundation (KAW), Sweden; European Organization for Nuclear Research, Switzerland; Suranaree University of Technology (SUT), National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA), Thailand Science Research and Innovation (TSRI) and National Science, Research and Innovation Fund (NSRF), Thailand; Turkish Energy, Nuclear and Mineral Research Agency (TENMAK), Turkey; National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Ukraine; Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), United Kingdom; National Science Foundation of the United States of America (NSF) and United States Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Physics (DOE NP), United States of America. In addition, individual groups or members have received support from: European Research Council, Strong 2020 - Horizon 2020, Marie Skłodowska Curie (grant nos. 950692, 824093, 896850), European Union; Academy of Finland (Center of Excellence in Quark Matter) (grant nos. 346327, 346328), Finland; Programa de Apoyos para la Superación del Personal Académico, UNAM, Mexico.
Appendix A Supplemental Figures
In this appendix, some supplemental figures are reported. In particular, Fig. 11 illustrates some details about the analysis steps described in Sec. 3.2, while Figs. 12 and 13 support the discussion reported in Sec. 5.3 about the comparison of the measured correlation distributions with MC event generators.
Appendix B Supplemental figures with additional ranges
In this appendix, the azimuthal correlation distributions are shown for ranges not presented in Sec. 5 along with comparisons to PYTHIA8 and EPOS3 predictions (Figs. 14, 15, 16, 17, 18).
Appendix C The ALICE Collaboration
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Ercolessi 25, F. Erhardt 89, M.R. Ersdal20, B. Espagnon 72, G. Eulisse 32, D. Evans 100, S. Evdokimov 140, L. Fabbietti 95, M. Faggin 27, J. Faivre 73, F. Fan 6, W. Fan 74, A. Fantoni 48, M. Fasel 87, P. Fecchio29, A. Feliciello 55, G. Feofilov 140, A. Fernández Téllez 44, L. Ferrandi 110, M.B. Ferrer 32, A. Ferrero 128, C. Ferrero 55, A. Ferretti 24, V.J.G. Feuillard 94, V. Filova 35, D. Finogeev 140, F.M. Fionda 51, F. Flor 114, A.N. Flores 108, S. Foertsch 67, I. Fokin 94, S. Fokin 140, E. Fragiacomo 56, E. Frajna 136, U. Fuchs 32, N. Funicello 28, C. Furget 73, A. Furs 140, T. Fusayasu 98, J.J. Gaardhøje 83, M. Gagliardi 24, A.M. Gago 101, C.D. Galvan 109, D.R. Gangadharan 114, P. Ganoti 78, C. Garabatos 97, J.R.A. Garcia 44, E. Garcia-Solis 9, C. Gargiulo 32, K. Garner135, P. Gasik 97, A. Gautam 116, M.B. Gay Ducati 65, M. Germain 103, A. Ghimouz123, C. Ghosh132, M. Giacalone 50,25, P. Giubellino 97,55, P. Giubilato 27, A.M.C. Glaenzer 128, P. Glässel 94, E. Glimos 120, D.J.Q. Goh76, V. Gonzalez 134, M. Gorgon 2, S. Gotovac33, V. Grabski 66, L.K. Graczykowski 133, E. Grecka 86, A. Grelli 58, C. Grigoras 32, V. Grigoriev 140, S. Grigoryan 141,1, F. Grosa 32, J.F. Grosse-Oetringhaus 32, R. Grosso 97, D. Grund 35, G.G. Guardiano 111, R. Guernane 73, M. Guilbaud 103, K. Gulbrandsen 83, T. Gundem 63, T. Gunji 122, W. Guo 6, A. Gupta 91, R. Gupta 91, R. Gupta 47, S.P. Guzman 44, K. Gwizdziel 133, L. Gyulai 136, M.K. Habib97, C. Hadjidakis 72, F.U. Haider 91, H. Hamagaki 76, A. Hamdi 74, M. Hamid6, Y. Han 138, R. Hannigan 108, M.R. Haque 133, J.W. Harris 137, A. Harton 9, H. Hassan 87, D. Hatzifotiadou 50, P. Hauer 42, L.B. Havener 137, S.T. Heckel 95, E. Hellbär 97, H. Helstrup 34, M. Hemmer 63, T. Herman 35, G. Herrera Corral 8, F. Herrmann135, S. Herrmann 126, K.F. Hetland 34, B. Heybeck 63, H. Hillemanns 32, B. Hippolyte 127, F.W. Hoffmann 69, B. Hofman 58, B. Hohlweger 84, G.H. Hong 138, M. Horst 95, A. Horzyk 2, Y. Hou 6, P. Hristov 32, C. Hughes 120, P. Huhn63, L.M. Huhta 115, C.V. Hulse 72, T.J. Humanic 88, A. Hutson 114, D. Hutter 38, J.P. Iddon 117, R. Ilkaev140, H. Ilyas 13, M. Inaba 123, G.M. Innocenti 32, M. Ippolitov 140, A. Isakov 86, T. Isidori 116, M.S. Islam 99, M. Ivanov12, M. Ivanov 97, V. Ivanov 140, M. Jablonski 2, B. Jacak 74, N. Jacazio 32, P.M. Jacobs 74, S. Jadlovska106, J. Jadlovsky106, S. Jaelani 82, C. Jahnke 111, M.J. Jakubowska 133, M.A. Janik 133, T. Janson69, M. Jercic89, S. Jia 10, A.A.P. Jimenez 64, F. Jonas 87, J.M. Jowett 32,97, J. Jung 63, M. Jung 63, A. Junique 32, A. Jusko 100, M.J. Kabus 32,133, J. Kaewjai105, P. Kalinak 59, A.S. Kalteyer 97, A. Kalweit 32, V. Kaplin 140, A. Karasu Uysal 71, D. Karatovic 89, O. Karavichev 140, T. Karavicheva 140, P. Karczmarczyk 133, E. Karpechev 140, U. Kebschull 69, R. Keidel 139, D.L.D. Keijdener58, M. Keil 32, B. Ketzer 42, S.S. Khade 47, A.M. Khan 6, S. Khan 15, A. Khanzadeev 140, Y. Kharlov 140, A. Khatun 116,15, A. Khuntia 107, M.B. Kidson113, B. Kileng 34, B. Kim 104, C. Kim 16, D.J. Kim 115, E.J. Kim 68, J. Kim 138, J.S. Kim 40, J. Kim 68, M. Kim 18, S. Kim 17, T. Kim 138, K. Kimura 92, S. Kirsch 63, I. Kisel 38, S. Kiselev 140, A. Kisiel 133, J.P. Kitowski 2, J.L. Klay 5, J. Klein 32, S. Klein 74, C. Klein-Bösing 135, M. Kleiner 63, T. Klemenz 95, A. Kluge 32, A.G. Knospe 114, C. Kobdaj 105, T. Kollegger97, A. Kondratyev 141, N. Kondratyeva 140, E. Kondratyuk 140, J. Konig 63, S.A. Konigstorfer 95, P.J. Konopka 32, G. Kornakov 133, S.D. Koryciak 2, A. Kotliarov 86, V. Kovalenko 140, M. Kowalski 107, V. Kozhuharov 36, I. Králik 59, A. Kravčáková 37, L. Krcal 32,38, L. Kreis97, M. Krivda 100,59, F. Krizek 86, K. Krizkova Gajdosova 32, M. Kroesen 94, M. Krüger 63, D.M. Krupova 35, E. Kryshen 140, V. Kučera 32, C. Kuhn 127, P.G. Kuijer 84, T. Kumaoka123, D. Kumar132, L. Kumar 90, N. Kumar90, S. Kumar 31, S. Kundu 32, P. Kurashvili 79, A. Kurepin 140, A.B. Kurepin 140, A. Kuryakin 140, S. Kushpil 86, J. Kvapil 100, M.J. Kweon 57, J.Y. Kwon 57, Y. Kwon 138, S.L. La Pointe 38, P. La Rocca 26, A. Lakrathok105, M. Lamanna 32, R. Langoy 119, P. Larionov 32, E. Laudi 32, L. Lautner 32,95, R. Lavicka 102, T. Lazareva 140, R. Lea 131,54, H. Lee 104, G. Legras 135, J. Lehrbach 38, T.M. Lelek2, R.C. Lemmon 85, I. León Monzón 109, M.M. Lesch 95, E.D. Lesser 18, P. Lévai 136, X. Li10, X.L. Li6, J. Lien 119, R. Lietava 100, I. Likmeta 114, B. Lim 24, S.H. Lim 16, V. Lindenstruth 38, A. Lindner45, C. Lippmann 97, A. Liu 18, D.H. Liu 6, J. Liu 117, I.M. Lofnes 20, C. Loizides 87, S. Lokos 107, J. Lomker 58, P. Loncar 33, J.A. Lopez 94, X. Lopez 125, E. López Torres 7, P. Lu 97,118, J.R. Luhder 135, M. Lunardon 27, G. Luparello 56, Y.G. Ma 39, A. Maevskaya140, M. Mager 32, A. Maire 127, M.V. Makariev 36, M. Malaev 140, G. Malfattore 25, N.M. Malik 91, Q.W. Malik19, S.K. Malik 91, L. Malinina VII,141, D. Mal’Kevich 140, D. Mallick 80, N. Mallick 47, G. Mandaglio 30,52, S.K. Mandal 79, V. Manko 140, F. Manso 125, V. Manzari 49, Y. Mao 6, G.V. Margagliotti 23, A. Margotti 50, A. Marín 97, C. Markert 108, P. Martinengo 32, J.L. Martinez114, M.I. Martínez 44, G. Martínez García 103, S. Masciocchi 97, M. Masera 24, A. Masoni 51, L. Massacrier 72, A. Mastroserio 129,49, O. Matonoha 75, P.F.T. Matuoka110, A. Matyja 107, C. Mayer 107, A.L. Mazuecos 32, F. Mazzaschi 24, M. Mazzilli 32, J.E. Mdhluli 121, A.F. Mechler63, Y. Melikyan 43,140, A. Menchaca-Rocha 66, E. Meninno 102,28, A.S. Menon 114, M. Meres 12, S. Mhlanga113,67, Y. Miake123, L. Micheletti 55, L.C. Migliorin126, D.L. Mihaylov 95, K. Mikhaylov 141,140, A.N. Mishra 136, D. Miśkowiec 97, A. Modak 4, A.P. Mohanty 58, B. Mohanty80, M. Mohisin Khan V,15, M.A. Molander 43, Z. Moravcova 83, C. Mordasini 95, D.A. Moreira De Godoy 135, I. Morozov 140, A. Morsch 32, T. Mrnjavac 32, V. Muccifora 48, S. Muhuri 132, J.D. Mulligan 74, A. Mulliri22, M.G. Munhoz 110, R.H. Munzer 63, H. Murakami 122, S. Murray 113, L. Musa 32, J. Musinsky 59, J.W. Myrcha 133, B. Naik 121, A.I. Nambrath 18, B.K. Nandi 46, R. Nania 50, E. Nappi 49, A.F. Nassirpour 17,75, A. Nath 94, C. Nattrass 120, M.N. Naydenov 36, A. Neagu19, A. Negru124, L. Nellen 64, S.V. Nesbo34, G. Neskovic 38, D. Nesterov 140, B.S. Nielsen 83, E.G. Nielsen 83, S. Nikolaev 140, S. Nikulin 140, V. Nikulin 140, F. Noferini 50, S. Noh 11, P. Nomokonov 141, J. Norman 117, N. Novitzky 123, P. Nowakowski 133, A. Nyanin 140, J. Nystrand 20, M. Ogino 76, A. Ohlson 75, V.A. Okorokov 140, J. Oleniacz 133, A.C. Oliveira Da Silva 120, M.H. Oliver 137, A. Onnerstad 115, C. Oppedisano 55, A. Ortiz Velasquez 64, J. Otwinowski 107, M. Oya92, K. Oyama 76, Y. Pachmayer 94, S. Padhan 46, D. Pagano 131,54, G. Paić 64, A. Palasciano 49, S. Panebianco 128, H. Park 123, H. Park 104, J. Park 57, J.E. Parkkila 32, R.N. Patra91, B. Paul 22, H. Pei 6, T. Peitzmann 58, X. Peng 6, M. Pennisi 24, L.G. Pereira 65, D. Peresunko 140, G.M. Perez 7, S. Perrin 128, Y. Pestov140, V. Petráček 35, V. Petrov 140, M. Petrovici 45, R.P. Pezzi 103,65, S. Piano 56, M. Pikna 12, P. Pillot 103, O. Pinazza 50,32, L. Pinsky114, C. Pinto 95, S. Pisano 48, M. Płoskoń 74, M. Planinic89, F. Pliquett63, M.G. Poghosyan 87, B. Polichtchouk 140, S. Politano 29, N. Poljak 89, A. Pop 45, S. Porteboeuf-Houssais 125, V. Pozdniakov 141, I.Y. Pozos 44, K.K. Pradhan 47, S.K. Prasad 4, S. Prasad 47, R. Preghenella 50, F. Prino 55, C.A. Pruneau 134, I. Pshenichnov 140, M. Puccio 32, S. Pucillo 24, Z. Pugelova106, S. Qiu 84, L. Quaglia 24, R.E. Quishpe114, S. Ragoni 14, A. Rakotozafindrabe 128, L. Ramello 130,55, F. Rami 127, S.A.R. Ramirez 44, T.A. Rancien73, M. Rasa 26, S.S. Räsänen 43, R. Rath 50, M.P. Rauch 20, I. Ravasenga 84, K.F. Read 87,120, C. Reckziegel 112, A.R. Redelbach 38, K. Redlich VI,79, C.A. Reetz 97, A. Rehman20, F. Reidt 32, H.A. Reme-Ness 34, Z. Rescakova37, K. Reygers 94, A. Riabov 140, V. Riabov 140, R. Ricci 28, M. Richter 19, A.A. Riedel 95, W. Riegler 32, C. Ristea 62, M. Rodríguez Cahuantzi 44, K. Røed 19, R. Rogalev 140, E. Rogochaya 141, T.S. Rogoschinski 63, D. Rohr 32, D. Röhrich 20, P.F. Rojas44, S. Rojas Torres 35, P.S. Rokita 133, G. Romanenko 141, F. Ronchetti 48, A. Rosano 30,52, E.D. Rosas64, K. Roslon 133, A. Rossi 53, A. Roy 47, S. Roy 46, N. Rubini 25, O.V. Rueda 114, D. Ruggiano 133, R. Rui 23, B. Rumyantsev141, P.G. Russek 2, R. Russo 84, A. Rustamov 81, E. Ryabinkin 140, Y. Ryabov 140, A. Rybicki 107, H. Rytkonen 115, W. Rzesa 133, O.A.M. Saarimaki 43, R. Sadek 103, S. Sadhu 31, S. Sadovsky 140, J. Saetre 20, K. Šafařík 35, S.K. Saha 4, S. Saha 80, B. Sahoo 46, B. Sahoo 47, R. Sahoo 47, S. Sahoo60, D. Sahu 47, P.K. Sahu 60, J. Saini 132, K. Sajdakova37, S. Sakai 123, M.P. Salvan 97, S. Sambyal 91, I. Sanna 32,95, T.B. Saramela110, D. Sarkar 134, N. Sarkar132, P. Sarma 41, V. Sarritzu 22, V.M. Sarti 95, M.H.P. Sas 137, J. Schambach 87, H.S. Scheid 63, C. Schiaua 45, R. Schicker 94, A. Schmah94, C. Schmidt 97, H.R. Schmidt93, M.O. Schmidt 32, M. Schmidt93, N.V. Schmidt 87, A.R. Schmier 120, R. Schotter 127, A. Schröter 38, J. Schukraft 32, K. Schwarz97, K. Schweda 97, G. Scioli 25, E. Scomparin 55, J.E. Seger 14, Y. Sekiguchi122, D. Sekihata 122, I. Selyuzhenkov 97,140, S. Senyukov 127, J.J. Seo 57, D. Serebryakov 140, L. Šerkšnytė 95, A. Sevcenco 62, T.J. Shaba 67, A. Shabetai 103, R. Shahoyan32, A. Shangaraev 140, A. Sharma90, B. Sharma 91, D. Sharma 46, H. Sharma 107, M. Sharma 91, S. Sharma 76, S. Sharma 91, U. Sharma 91, A. Shatat 72, O. Sheibani114, K. Shigaki 92, M. Shimomura77, J. Shin11, S. Shirinkin 140, Q. Shou 39, Y. Sibiriak 140, S. Siddhanta 51, T. Siemiarczuk 79, T.F. Silva 110, D. Silvermyr 75, T. Simantathammakul105, R. Simeonov 36, B. Singh91, B. Singh 95, R. Singh 80, R. Singh 91, R. Singh 47, S. Singh 15, V.K. Singh 132, V. Singhal 132, T. Sinha 99, B. Sitar 12, M. Sitta 130,55, T.B. Skaali19, G. Skorodumovs 94, M. Slupecki 43, N. Smirnov 137, R.J.M. Snellings 58, E.H. Solheim 19, J. Song 114, A. Songmoolnak105, F. Soramel 27, A.B. Soto-hernandez 88, R. Spijkers 84, I. Sputowska 107, J. Staa 75, J. Stachel 94, I. Stan 62, P.J. Steffanic 120, S.F. Stiefelmaier 94, D. Stocco 103, I. Storehaug 19, P. Stratmann 135, S. Strazzi 25, C.P. Stylianidis84, A.A.P. Suaide 110, C. Suire 72, M. Sukhanov 140, M. Suljic 32, R. Sultanov 140, V. Sumberia 91, S. Sumowidagdo 82, S. Swain60, I. Szarka 12, M. Szymkowski 133, S.F. Taghavi 95, G. Taillepied 97, J. Takahashi 111, G.J. Tambave 20, S. Tang 125,6, Z. Tang 118, J.D. Tapia Takaki 116, N. Tapus124, L.A. Tarasovicova 135, M.G. Tarzila 45, G.F. Tassielli 31, A. Tauro 32, G. Tejeda Muñoz 44, A. Telesca 32, L. Terlizzi 24, C. Terrevoli 114, S. Thakur 4, D. Thomas 108, A. Tikhonov 140, A.R. Timmins 114, M. Tkacik106, T. Tkacik 106, A. Toia 63, R. Tokumoto92, N. Topilskaya 140, M. Toppi 48, F. Torales-Acosta18, T. Tork 72, A.G. Torres Ramos 31, A. Trifiró 30,52, A.S. Triolo 32,30,52, S. Tripathy 50, T. Tripathy 46, S. Trogolo 32, V. Trubnikov 3, W.H. Trzaska 115, T.P. Trzcinski 133, A. Tumkin 140, R. Turrisi 53, T.S. Tveter 19, K. Ullaland 20, B. Ulukutlu 95, A. Uras 126, M. Urioni 54,131, G.L. Usai 22, M. Vala37, N. Valle 21, L.V.R. van Doremalen58, M. van Leeuwen 84, C.A. van Veen 94, R.J.G. van Weelden 84, P. Vande Vyvre 32, D. Varga 136, Z. Varga 136, M. Vasileiou 78, A. Vasiliev 140, O. Vázquez Doce 48, V. Vechernin 140, E. Vercellin 24, S. Vergara Limón44, L. Vermunt 97, R. Vértesi 136, M. Verweij 58, L. Vickovic33, Z. Vilakazi121, O. Villalobos Baillie 100, A. Villani 23, G. Vino 49, A. Vinogradov 140, T. Virgili 28, M.M.O. Virta 115, V. Vislavicius75, A. Vodopyanov 141, B. Volkel 32, M.A. Völkl 94, K. Voloshin140, S.A. Voloshin 134, G. Volpe 31, B. von Haller 32, I. Vorobyev 95, N. Vozniuk 140, J. Vrláková 37, C. Wang 39, D. Wang39, Y. Wang 39, A. Wegrzynek 32, F.T. Weiglhofer38, S.C. Wenzel 32, J.P. Wessels 135, S.L. Weyhmiller 137, J. Wiechula 63, J. Wikne 19, G. Wilk 79, J. Wilkinson 97, G.A. Willems 135, B. Windelband 94, M. Winn 128, J.R. Wright 108, W. Wu39, Y. Wu 118, R. Xu 6, A. Yadav 42, A.K. Yadav 132, S. Yalcin 71, Y. Yamaguchi 92, S. Yang20, S. Yano 92, Z. Yin 6, I.-K. Yoo 16, J.H. Yoon 57, S. Yuan20, A. Yuncu 94, V. Zaccolo 23, C. Zampolli 32, F. Zanone 94, N. Zardoshti 32, A. Zarochentsev 140, P. Závada 61, N. Zaviyalov140, M. Zhalov 140, B. Zhang 6, L. Zhang 39, S. Zhang 39, X. Zhang 6, Y. Zhang118, Z. Zhang 6, M. Zhao 10, V. Zherebchevskii 140, Y. Zhi10, D. Zhou 6, Y. Zhou 83, J. Zhu 97,6, Y. Zhu6, S.C. Zugravel 55, N. Zurlo 131,54
Affiliation Notes
I Deceased
II Also at: Max-Planck-Institut für Physik, Munich, Germany
III Also at: Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA), Bologna, Italy
IV Also at: Dipartimento DET del Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy
V Also at: Department of Applied Physics, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India
VI Also at: Institute of Theoretical Physics, University of Wroclaw, Poland
VII Also at: An institution covered by a cooperation agreement with CERN
Collaboration Institutes
1 A.I. Alikhanyan National Science Laboratory (Yerevan Physics Institute) Foundation, Yerevan, Armenia
2 AGH University of Science and Technology, Cracow, Poland
3 Bogolyubov Institute for Theoretical Physics, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kiev, Ukraine
4 Bose Institute, Department of Physics and Centre for Astroparticle Physics and Space Science (CAPSS), Kolkata, India
5 California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, California, United States
6 Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China
7 Centro de Aplicaciones Tecnológicas y Desarrollo Nuclear (CEADEN), Havana, Cuba
8 Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados (CINVESTAV), Mexico City and Mérida, Mexico
9 Chicago State University, Chicago, Illinois, United States
10 China Institute of Atomic Energy, Beijing, China
11 Chungbuk National University, Cheongju, Republic of Korea
12 Comenius University Bratislava, Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Informatics, Bratislava, Slovak Republic
13 COMSATS University Islamabad, Islamabad, Pakistan
14 Creighton University, Omaha, Nebraska, United States
15 Department of Physics, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India
16 Department of Physics, Pusan National University, Pusan, Republic of Korea
17 Department of Physics, Sejong University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
18 Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, California, United States
19 Department of Physics, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
20 Department of Physics and Technology, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
21 Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Pavia, Pavia, Italy
22 Dipartimento di Fisica dell’Università and Sezione INFN, Cagliari, Italy
23 Dipartimento di Fisica dell’Università and Sezione INFN, Trieste, Italy
24 Dipartimento di Fisica dell’Università and Sezione INFN, Turin, Italy
25 Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia dell’Università and Sezione INFN, Bologna, Italy
26 Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia dell’Università and Sezione INFN, Catania, Italy
27 Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia dell’Università and Sezione INFN, Padova, Italy
28 Dipartimento di Fisica ‘E.R. Caianiello’ dell’Università and Gruppo Collegato INFN, Salerno, Italy
29 Dipartimento DISAT del Politecnico and Sezione INFN, Turin, Italy
30 Dipartimento di Scienze MIFT, Università di Messina, Messina, Italy
31 Dipartimento Interateneo di Fisica ‘M. Merlin’ and Sezione INFN, Bari, Italy
32 European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Geneva, Switzerland
33 Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture, University of Split, Split, Croatia
34 Faculty of Engineering and Science, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Bergen, Norway
35 Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic
36 Faculty of Physics, Sofia University, Sofia, Bulgaria
37 Faculty of Science, P.J. Šafárik University, Košice, Slovak Republic
38 Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany
39 Fudan University, Shanghai, China
40 Gangneung-Wonju National University, Gangneung, Republic of Korea
41 Gauhati University, Department of Physics, Guwahati, India
42 Helmholtz-Institut für Strahlen- und Kernphysik, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, Bonn, Germany
43 Helsinki Institute of Physics (HIP), Helsinki, Finland
44 High Energy Physics Group, Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Puebla, Mexico
45 Horia Hulubei National Institute of Physics and Nuclear Engineering, Bucharest, Romania
46 Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT), Mumbai, India
47 Indian Institute of Technology Indore, Indore, India
48 INFN, Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati, Frascati, Italy
49 INFN, Sezione di Bari, Bari, Italy
50 INFN, Sezione di Bologna, Bologna, Italy
51 INFN, Sezione di Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy
52 INFN, Sezione di Catania, Catania, Italy
53 INFN, Sezione di Padova, Padova, Italy
54 INFN, Sezione di Pavia, Pavia, Italy
55 INFN, Sezione di Torino, Turin, Italy
56 INFN, Sezione di Trieste, Trieste, Italy
57 Inha University, Incheon, Republic of Korea
58 Institute for Gravitational and Subatomic Physics (GRASP), Utrecht University/Nikhef, Utrecht, Netherlands
59 Institute of Experimental Physics, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Košice, Slovak Republic
60 Institute of Physics, Homi Bhabha National Institute, Bhubaneswar, India
61 Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic
62 Institute of Space Science (ISS), Bucharest, Romania
63 Institut für Kernphysik, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany
64 Instituto de Ciencias Nucleares, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City, Mexico
65 Instituto de Física, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Porto Alegre, Brazil
66 Instituto de Física, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City, Mexico
67 iThemba LABS, National Research Foundation, Somerset West, South Africa
68 Jeonbuk National University, Jeonju, Republic of Korea
69 Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe Universität Frankfurt Institut für Informatik, Fachbereich Informatik und Mathematik, Frankfurt, Germany
70 Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information, Daejeon, Republic of Korea
71 KTO Karatay University, Konya, Turkey
72 Laboratoire de Physique des 2 Infinis, Irène Joliot-Curie, Orsay, France
73 Laboratoire de Physique Subatomique et de Cosmologie, Université Grenoble-Alpes, CNRS-IN2P3, Grenoble, France
74 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California, United States
75 Lund University Department of Physics, Division of Particle Physics, Lund, Sweden
76 Nagasaki Institute of Applied Science, Nagasaki, Japan
77 Nara Women’s University (NWU), Nara, Japan
78 National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, School of Science, Department of Physics , Athens, Greece
79 National Centre for Nuclear Research, Warsaw, Poland
80 National Institute of Science Education and Research, Homi Bhabha National Institute, Jatni, India
81 National Nuclear Research Center, Baku, Azerbaijan
82 National Research and Innovation Agency - BRIN, Jakarta, Indonesia
83 Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
84 Nikhef, National institute for subatomic physics, Amsterdam, Netherlands
85 Nuclear Physics Group, STFC Daresbury Laboratory, Daresbury, United Kingdom
86 Nuclear Physics Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Husinec-Řež, Czech Republic
87 Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, United States
88 Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, United States
89 Physics department, Faculty of science, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
90 Physics Department, Panjab University, Chandigarh, India
91 Physics Department, University of Jammu, Jammu, India
92 Physics Program and International Institute for Sustainability with Knotted Chiral Meta Matter (SKCM2), Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan
93 Physikalisches Institut, Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
94 Physikalisches Institut, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany
95 Physik Department, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany
96 Politecnico di Bari and Sezione INFN, Bari, Italy
97 Research Division and ExtreMe Matter Institute EMMI, GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH, Darmstadt, Germany
98 Saga University, Saga, Japan
99 Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Homi Bhabha National Institute, Kolkata, India
100 School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom
101 Sección Física, Departamento de Ciencias, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima, Peru
102 Stefan Meyer Institut für Subatomare Physik (SMI), Vienna, Austria
103 SUBATECH, IMT Atlantique, Nantes Université, CNRS-IN2P3, Nantes, France
104 Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon City, Republic of Korea
105 Suranaree University of Technology, Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand
106 Technical University of Košice, Košice, Slovak Republic
107 The Henryk Niewodniczanski Institute of Nuclear Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Cracow, Poland
108 The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, United States
109 Universidad Autónoma de Sinaloa, Culiacán, Mexico
110 Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, Brazil
111 Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP), Campinas, Brazil
112 Universidade Federal do ABC, Santo Andre, Brazil
113 University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
114 University of Houston, Houston, Texas, United States
115 University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland
116 University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, United States
117 University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom
118 University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China
119 University of South-Eastern Norway, Kongsberg, Norway
120 University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, United States
121 University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
122 University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
123 University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan
124 University Politehnica of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania
125 Université Clermont Auvergne, CNRS/IN2P3, LPC, Clermont-Ferrand, France
126 Université de Lyon, CNRS/IN2P3, Institut de Physique des 2 Infinis de Lyon, Lyon, France
127 Université de Strasbourg, CNRS, IPHC UMR 7178, F-67000 Strasbourg, France, Strasbourg, France
128 Université Paris-Saclay Centre d’Etudes de Saclay (CEA), IRFU, Départment de Physique Nucléaire (DPhN), Saclay, France
129 Università degli Studi di Foggia, Foggia, Italy
130 Università del Piemonte Orientale, Vercelli, Italy
131 Università di Brescia, Brescia, Italy
132 Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre, Homi Bhabha National Institute, Kolkata, India
133 Warsaw University of Technology, Warsaw, Poland
134 Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, United States
135 Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Institut für Kernphysik, Münster, Germany
136 Wigner Research Centre for Physics, Budapest, Hungary
137 Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, United States
138 Yonsei University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
139 Zentrum für Technologie und Transfer (ZTT), Worms, Germany
140 Affiliated with an institute covered by a cooperation agreement with CERN
141 Affiliated with an international laboratory covered by a cooperation agreement with CERN.
The reference list from the paper itself. Each links out to its DOI / PubMed record.
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