UC Berkeley

The production of prompt Ds+ mesons was measured for the first time in collisions of heavy nuclei with the ALICE detector at the LHC. The analysis was performed on a data sample of Pb-Pb collisions at a centre-of-mass energy per nucleon pair, sNN$$ \sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}} $$, of 2.76 TeV in two different centrality classes, namely 0–10% and 20–50%. Ds+ mesons and their antiparticles were reconstructed at mid-rapidity from their hadronic decay channel Ds+ → ϕπ+, with ϕ → K−K+, in the transverse momentum intervals 4 < pT < 12GeV/c and 6 < pT < 12 GeV/c for the 0–10% and 20–50% centrality classes, respectively. The nuclear modification factor RAA was computed by comparing the pT-differential production yields in Pb-Pb collisions to those in proton-proton (pp) collisions at the same energy. This pp reference was obtained using the cross section measured at s=7$$ \sqrt{s}=7 $$ TeV and scaled to s=2.76$$ \sqrt{s}=2.76 $$ TeV. The RAA of Ds+ mesons was compared to that of non-strange D mesons in the 10% most central Pb-Pb collisions. At high pT (8 < pT < 12 GeV/c) a suppression of the Ds+-meson yield by a factor of about three, compatible within uncertainties with that of non-strange D mesons, is observed. At lower pT (4 < pT < 8 GeV/c) the values of the Ds+-meson RAA are larger than those of non-strange D mesons, although compatible within uncertainties. The production ratios Ds+/D0 and Ds+/D+ were also measured in Pb-Pb collisions and compared to their values in proton-proton collisions.