Production of muons from heavy-flavour hadron decays at high transverse momentum in Pb-Pb collisions at sNN=5.02 and 2.76 TeV

Measurements of the production of muons from heavy-flavour hadron decays in Pb–Pb collisions at and 2.76 TeV using the ALICE detector at the LHC are reported. The nuclear modification factor at TeV is measured at forward rapidity () as a function of transverse momentum in central, semi-central, and peripheral collisions over a wide interval, GeV/c, in which muons from beauty-hadron decays are expected to take over from charm as the dominant source at high ( GeV/c). The shows an increase of the suppression of the yields of muons from heavy-flavour hadron decays with increasing centrality. A suppression by a factor of about three is observed in the 10% most central collisions. The at TeV is similar to that at TeV. The precise measurements have the potential to distinguish between model predictions implementing different mechanisms of parton energy loss in the high-density medium formed in heavy-ion collisions. They place important constraints for the understanding of the heavy-quark interaction with the hot and dense QCD medium.