Quarkonium suppression from coherent energy loss in fixed-target experiments using LHC beams

Abstract

Quarkonium production in proton-nucleus collisions is a powerful tool to disentangle cold nuclear matter effects. A model based on coherent energy loss is able to explain the available quarkonium suppression data in a broad range of rapidities, from fixed-target to collider energies, suggesting cold energy loss to be the dominant effect in quarkonium suppression in p-A collisions. This could be further tested in a high-energy fixed-target experiment using a proton or nucleus beam. The nuclear modification factors of J/$\psi$ and ${\rm Y}$ as a function of rapidity are computed in p-A collisions at $\sqrt{s}=114.6$ GeV, and in p-Pb and Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s}=72$ GeV. These center-of-mass energies correspond to the collision on fixed-target nuclei of 7 TeV protons and 2.76 TeV lead nuclei available at the LHC.

Comments: 7 pages, 2 figures