Suppression of Υ (1S) at forward rapidity in Pb–Pb collisions at √sNN = 2.76 TeV

Abstract

We report on the measurement of the inclusive Υ (1S) production in Pb–Pb collisions at √sNN = 2.76 TeV carried out at forward rapidity (2.5 < y < 4) and down to zero transverse momentum using its μ+μ− decay channel with the ALICE detector at the Large Hadron Collider. A strong suppression of the inclusive Υ(1S) yield is observed with respect to pp collisions scaled by the number of independent nucleon– nucleon collisions. The nuclear modification factor, for events in the 0–90% centrality range, amounts to 0.30 ± 0.05(stat) ± 0.04(syst). The observed Υ (1S) suppression tends to increase with the centrality of the collision and seems more pronounced than in corresponding mid-rapidity measurements. Our results are compared with model calculations, which are found to underestimate the measured suppression and fail to reproduce its rapidity dependence.