Speaker
Description
The top quark pair production cross section is measured for the first time in heavy ion collisions, using proton-lead (pPb) data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 180 $\text{nb}^{-1}$ at $\sqrt{s_{\text{NN}}}$ = 8.16 TeV. The measurement is performed by analyzing final states with exactly one isolated charged lepton (electron or muon) and at least four jets. The measured cross section is compared to expectation from the standard model using proton and nuclear parton distribution functions. The result is expected to be useful as an additional constraint to the gluon distribution inside the nucleus at large longitudinal parton momentum fractions. Furthermore, it paves the way to establish the measurement of top quark production in nucleus-nucleus collisions.
