Azimuthal Angle Correlations of Muons Produced via Heavy-Flavor Decays in 5.02 TeV Pb+Pb and pp Collisions with the ATLAS Detector

Abstract

Angular correlations between heavy quarks provide a unique probe of the quark-gluon plasma created in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions. Results are presented of a measurement of the azimuthal angle correlations between muons originating from semileptonic decays of heavy quarks produced in 5.02 TeV Formula Presented and Formula Presented collisions at the LHC. The muons are measured with transverse momenta and pseudorapidities satisfying Formula Presented and Formula Presented, respectively. The distributions of azimuthal angle separation Formula Presented for muon pairs having pseudorapidity separation Formula Presented, are measured in different Formula Presented centrality intervals and compared to the same distribution measured in Formula Presented collisions at the same center-of-mass energy. Results are presented separately for muon pairs with opposite-sign charges, same-sign charges, and all pairs. A clear peak is observed in all Formula Presented distributions at Formula Presented, consistent with the parent heavy-quark pairs being produced via hard-scattering processes. The widths of that peak, characterized using Cauchy-Lorentz fits to the Formula Presented distributions, are found to not vary significantly as a function of Formula Presented collision centrality and are similar for Formula Presented and Formula Presented collisions. This observation will provide important constraints on theoretical descriptions of heavy-quark interactions with the quark-gluon plasma. © 2024 CERN, for the ATLAS Collaboration.