Measurement of the Z boson production cross-section in pp collisions at $ \sqrt{s}$ = 5.02 TeV
The first measurement of the Z boson production cross-section at centre-of-mass energy $\sqrt{s}$ = 5.02 TeV in the forward region is reported, using pp collision data collected by the LHCb experiment in year 2017, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 100 ± 2 pb –1 . The production cross-section is measured for final-state muons in the pseudorapidity range 2.0 < η < 4.5 with transverse momentum p T > 20 GeV/c. The integrated cross-section is determined to be ${\sigma}_{Z\to \mu +\mu -}=39.6\pm 0.7\left(\textrm{stat}\right)\pm 0.6\left(\textrm{syst}\right)\pm 0.8\left(\textrm{lumi}\right)\textrm{pb}$ for the di-muon invariant mass in the range 60 < M μμ < 120 GeV/c 2 . This result and the differential cross-section results are in good agreement with theoretical predictions at next-to-next-to-leading order in the strong coupling constant. Based on a previous LHCb measurement of the Z boson production cross-section in pPb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 5.02 TeV, the nuclear modification factor RpPb is measured for the first time at this energy. The measured values are ${1.2}_{-0.3}^{+0.5}$ (stat) ± 0.1(syst) in the forward region (1.53 < ${y}_{\mu}^{\ast }$ < 4.03) and ${3.6}_{-0.9}^{+1.6}$ (stat) ± 0.2(syst) in the backward region (–4.97 < ${y}_{\mu}^{\ast }$ < –2.47), where ${y}_{\mu}^{\ast }$ represents the muon rapidity in the centre-of-mass frame.