Observation of $Z$ production in proton-lead collisions at LHCb

The first observation of $Z$ boson production in proton-lead collisions at a centre-of-mass energy per proton-nucleon pair of $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=5~\text{TeV}$ is presented. The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of $1.6~\text{nb}^{-1}$ collected with the LHCb detector. The $Z$ candidate...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: collaboration, L, Aaij, R, Adeva, B, Adinolfi, M, Affolder, A, Ajaltouni, Z, Akar, S, Albrecht, J, Alessio, F, Alexander, M, Ali, S, Alkhazov, G, Cartelle, P, Jr, A, Amato, S, Amerio, S, Amhis, Y, An, L, Anderlini, L, Anderson, J, Andreassen, R, Andreotti, M, Andrews, J, Appleby, R, Gutierrez, O
Format: Journal article
Language:English
Published: Springer Verlag 2014
Description
Summary:The first observation of $Z$ boson production in proton-lead collisions at a centre-of-mass energy per proton-nucleon pair of $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=5~\text{TeV}$ is presented. The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of $1.6~\text{nb}^{-1}$ collected with the LHCb detector. The $Z$ candidates are reconstructed from pairs of oppositely charged muons with pseudorapidities between 2.0 and 4.5 and transverse momenta above $20~\text{GeV}/c$. The invariant dimuon mass is restricted to the range $60-120~\text{GeV}/c^2$. The $Z$ production cross-section is measured to be \begin{eqnarray*} \sigma_{Z\to\mu^+\mu^-}(\text{fwd})and=and13.5^{+5.4}_{-4.0}\text{(stat.)}\pm1.2\text{(syst.)}~\text{nb} \end{eqnarray*} in the direction of the proton beam and \begin{eqnarray*} \sigma_{Z\to\mu^+\mu^-}(\text{bwd}) and =and10.7^{+8.4}_{-5.1}\text{(stat.)}\pm1.0\text{(syst.)}~\text{nb} \end{eqnarray*} in the direction of the lead beam, where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second systematic.