A search for Z bosons in the mu^+mu^- decay channel has been performed in PbPb collisions at a nucleon-nucleon centre of mass energy = 2.76 TeV with the CMS detector at the LHC, in a 7.2 inverse microbarn data sample. The number of opposite-sign muon pairs observed in the 60--120 GeV/c2 invariant mass range is 39, corresponding to a yield per unit of rapidity (y) and per minimum bias event of (33.8 ± 5.5 (stat) ± 4.4 (syst)) 10^{-8}, in the |y|<2.0 range. Rapidity, transverse momentum, and centrality dependencies are also measured. The results agree with next-to-leading order QCD calculations, scaled by the number of incoherent nucleon-nucleon collisions.
The production of Z bosons is studied in the dimuon and dielectron decay channels in PbPb and pp collisions at sqrt(s[NN]) = 2.76 TeV, using data collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC. The PbPb data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of about 150 inverse microbarns, while the pp data sample collected in 2013 at the same nucleon-nucleon centre-of-mass energy has an integrated luminosity of 5.4 inverse picobarns. The Z boson yield is measured as a function of rapidity, transverse momentum, and collision centrality. The ratio of PbPb to pp yields, scaled by the number of inelastic nucleon-nucleon collisions, is found to be 1.06 +/- 0.05 (stat) +/- 0.08 (syst) in the dimuon channel and 1.02 +/- 0.08 (stat) +/- 0.15 (syst) in the dielectron channel, for centrality-integrated Z boson production. This binary collision scaling is seen to hold in the entire kinematic region studied, as expected for a colourless probe that is unaffected by the hot and dense QCD medium produced in heavy ion collisions.
The ratio between the prompt psi(2S) and J/psi yields, reconstructed via their decays into muon pairs, is measured in PbPb and pp collisions at sqrt(s[NN]) = 2.76 TeV. The analysis is based on PbPb and pp data samples collected by CMS at the LHC, corresponding to integrated luminosities of 150 inverse microbarns and 5.4 inverse picobarns, respectively. The double ratio of measured yields, (N[psi(2S)]/N[J/psi])[PbPb] / (N[psi(2S)]/ N[J/psi])[pp], is computed in three PbPb collision centrality bins and two kinematic ranges: one at midrapidity, abs(y) < 1.6, covering the transverse momentum range 6.5 < pt < 30 GeV/c, and the other at forward rapidity, 1.6 < abs(y) < 2.4, extending to lower pt values, 3 < pt < 30 GeV/c. The centrality-integrated double ratio changes from 0.45 +/- 0.13 (stat) +/- 0.07 (syst) in the first range to 1.67 +/- 0.34 (stat) +/- 0.27 (syst) in the second. This difference is most pronounced in the most central collisions.