Measurement of the Production and Lepton Charge Asymmetry of W Bosons in Pb+Pb Collisions at √{S_{NN}} = 2.76 TeV with the ATLAS Detector

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