The ATLAS Collaboration measures the inclusive production of $Z$ bosons via their decays into electron and muon pairs in $p+\mathrm{Pb}$ collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathit{NN}}}=5.02\mathrm{TeV}$ at the Large Hadron Collider. The measurements are made using data corresponding to integrated luminosities of 29.4 and 28.1 ${\mathrm{nb}}^{-1}$ for $Z\to ee$ and $Z\to \mu \mu$, respectively. The results from the two channels are consistent and combined to obtain a cross section times the $Z\to \ell \ell$ branching ratio, integrated over the rapidity region $|y_Z^{*}|<3.5$, of $139.8\pm 4.8\left(\mathrm{statistical}\right)\pm 6.2\left(\mathrm{systematic}\right)\pm 3.8$ (luminosity) nb. Differential cross sections are presented as functions of the $Z$ boson rapidity and transverse momentum and compared with models based on parton distributions both with and without nuclear corrections. The centrality dependence of $Z$ boson production in $p+\mathrm{Pb}$ collisions is measured and analyzed within the framework of a standard Glauber model and the model's extension for fluctuations of the underlying nucleon-nucleon scattering cross section.

• Received 23 July 2015
• Revised 23 September 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.92.044915

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©2015 CERN, for the ATLAS Collaboration