Observation of the Bc⁺ Meson in Pb-Pb and p p Collisions at √sNN=5.02 TeV and Measurement of its Nuclear Modification Factor

The Bc+ meson is observed for the first time in heavy ion collisions. Data from the CMS detector are used to study the production of the Bc+ meson in lead-lead (Pb-Pb) and proton-proton (pp) collisions at a center-of-mass energy per nucleon pair of sNN=5.02 TeV, via the Bc+→(J/ψ→μ+μ-)μ+νμ decay. The Bc+ nuclear modification factor, derived from the Pb-Pb-to-pp ratio of production cross sections, is measured in two bins of the trimuon transverse momentum and of the Pb-Pb collision centrality. The Bc+ meson is shown to be less suppressed than quarkonia and most of the open heavy-flavor mesons, suggesting that effects of the hot and dense nuclear matter created in heavy ion collisions contribute to its production. This measurement sets forth a promising new probe of the interplay of suppression and enhancement mechanisms in the production of heavy-flavor mesons in the quark-gluon plasma.