Measurement of beauty-strange meson production in Pb–Pb collisions at s NN = 5.02 TeV via non-prompt D s + mesons
The production yields of non-prompt ${D}^{+}_{s}$ mesons, namely ${D}^{+}_{s}$ mesons from beauty-hadron decays, were measured for the first time as a function of the transverse momentum ($p_T$) at midrapidity (|$y$| < 0.5) in central and semi-central Pb–Pb collisions at a centre-of-mass energy per nucleon pair $\sqrt{s{NN}}$ = 5.02 TeV with the ALICE experiment at the LHC. The ${D}^{+}_{s}$ mesons and their charge conjugates were reconstructed from the hadronic decay channel ${D}^{+}_{s}$ → $φπ^+$, with $φ$ → K - K + , in the 4 < $p_T$ < 36 GeV/c and 2 < $p_T$ < 24 GeV/ $c$ intervals for the 0–10% and 30–50% centrality classes, respectively. The measured yields of non-prompt ${D}^{+}_{s}$ mesons are compared to those of prompt ${D}^{+}_{s}$ and non-prompt $D^0$ mesons by calculating the ratios of the production yields in Pb–Pb collisions and the nuclear modification factor $R_{AA}$. The ratio between the $R_{AA}$ of non-prompt ${D}^{+}_{s}$ prompt ${D}^{+}_{s}$ mesons, and that between the $R_{AA}$ of non-prompt ${D}^{+}_{s}$ and non-prompt $D^0$ mesons in central Pb–Pb collisions are found to be on average higher than unity in the 4 < $p_T$ < 12 GeV/ $c$ interval with a statistical significance of about 1.6σ and 1.7σ, respectively. The measured $R_{AA}$ ratios are compared with the predictions of theoretical models of heavy-quark transport in a hydrodynamically expanding QGP that incorporate hadronisation via quark recombination.