Measurement of W boson production and the lepton charge asymmetry in PbPb collisions at √sNN = 2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector

A measurement of $W$ boson production in lead-lead collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}=2.76\;TeV$ is presented. It is based on analyses of data collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2011 corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 0.14 and 0.15 $\mathrm{nb}^{-1}$ in the muon and electron decay channels, respectively. The differential production yields and lepton charge asymmetry are measured as a function of the average number of participating nucleons and absolute pseudorapidity of the charged lepton. The results are compared to predictions based on modified leading-order and next-to-leading-order calculations. These measurements provide information on the scaling of $W$ boson production in multi-nucleon systems as well as possible nuclear modifications to the parton distribution functions.