Production of open charm and beauty states in pPb collisions with LHCb

Abstract

These proceedings summarize the LHCb measurements of charm- and beauty-hadron production in pPb collisions. The studies are made down to very low- of the observed heavy-flavor hadrons using fully reconstructed decays. Nuclear matter effects are quantified via nuclear modification factors and forward-backward production ratios. A strong suppression is observed at positive rapidity (proton beam direction), while a modest or no suppression is seen for the backward rapidity (lead beam direction). The nuclear parton distributions of the lead nucleus is constrained down to Bjorken-$x\sim10^{-5}$, assuming it is the only nuclear effect for open heavy-flavor production. These data provide important inputs to understand the Quark-Gluon Plasma formed in heavy-nucleus collisions.