Nuclear modification factor of D$^0$ mesons in PbPb collisions at $\sqrt{s_\mathrm{NN}} =$ 5.02 TeV

Understand

The transverse momentum ($p_\mathrm{t}$) spectrum of prompt D$^0$ mesons and their antiparticles has been measured via the hadronic decay channels D$^0 \to \mathrm{K}^- \pi^+$ and $\overline{\mathrm{D}}^0 \to \mathrm{K}^+ \pi^-$ in pp and PbPb collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 5.02 TeV per nucleon pair with the CMS detector at the LHC.

• The measurement is performed in the D$^0$ meson $p_\mathrm{t}$ range of 2-100 GeV and in the rapidity range of $|y| < $1.
• The pp (PbPb) dataset used for this analysis corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 27.4 pb$^{-1}$ (530 $\mu$b$^{-1}$).
• The measured D$^0$ meson $p_\mathrm{t}$ spectrum in pp collisions is well described by perturbative QCD calculations.