Measurement of the Z boson production cross-section in proton-lead collisions at $$ \sqrt{s_{\textrm{NN}}} $$ = 8.16 TeV

• Published in: The journal of high energy physics 2023-06, Vol.2023 (6), Article 22
• Main Authors: Aaij, R., Abdelmotteleb, A. S. W., Abellan Beteta, C., Abudinén, F., Ackernley, T., Adeva, B., Adinolfi, M., Afsharnia, H., Agapopoulou, C., Aidala, C. A., Aiola, S., Ajaltouni, Z., Akar, S., Akiba, K., Albrecht, J., Alessio, F., Alexander, M., Alfonso Albero, A., Aliouche, Z., Alvarez Cartelle, P., Amalric, R., Amato, S., Amey, J. L., Amhis, Y., An, L., Anderlini, L., Andersson, M., Andreianov, A., Andreotti, M., Andreou, D., Ao, D., Archilli, F., Artamonov, A., Artuso, M., Aslanides, E., Atzeni, M., Audurier, B., Bachmann, S., Bachmayer, M., Back, J. J., Bailly-reyre, A., Baladron Rodriguez, P., Balagura, V., Baldini, W., Baptista de Souza Leite, J., Barbetti, M., Barlow, R. J., Barsuk, S., Barter, W., Bartolini, M., Baryshnikov, F., Basels, J. M., Bassi, G., Batsukh, B., Battig, A., Bay, A., Beck, A., Becker, M., Bedeschi, F., Bediaga, I. B., Beiter, A., Belavin, V., Belin, S., Bellee, V., Belous, K., Belov, I., Belyaev, I., Bencivenni, G., Ben-Haim, E., Berezhnoy, A., Bernet, R., Berninghoff, D., Bernstein, H. C., Bertella, C., Bertolin, A., Betancourt, C., Betti, F., Bezshyiko, Ia, Bhasin, S., Bhom, J., Bian, L., Bieker, M. S., Biesuz, N. V., Bifani, S., Billoir, P., Biolchini, A., Birch, M., Bishop, F. C. R., Bitadze, A., Bizzeti, A., Blago, M. P., Blake, T., Blanc, F., Blusk, S., Bobulska, D., Boelhauve, J. A., Boente Garcia, O., Boettcher, T., Boldyrev, A., Bolognani, C. S.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: electroweak interaction; heavy ion experiments; heavy-ion collision; High Energy Physics - Experiment; Nuclear Experiment; Physics; PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
• ISSN: 1029-8479; 1126-6708; 1029-8479
• DOI: 10.1007/JHEP06(2023)022

This article presents the first measurement of the differential Z -boson production cross-section in the forward region using proton-lead collisions with the LHCb detector. The dataset was collected at a nucleon-nucleon centre-of-mass energy of $$ \sqrt{s_{\textrm{NN}}} $$ s NN = 8 . 16 TeV in 2016, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 30 . 8 nb − 1 . The forward-backward ratio and the nuclear modification factors are measured together with the differential cross-section as functions of the Z boson rapidity in the centre-of-mass frame, the transverse momentum of the Z boson and a geometric variable ϕ * . The results are in good agreement with the predictions from nuclear parton distribution functions, providing strong constraining power at small Bjorken- x .