Measurement of the production and nuclear modification factor of prompt charged pions, charged kaons and protons in proton-proton and proton-lead collisions at the LHCb experiment

Abstract

This thesis presents the measurement of the production rates of charged and identified pions, kaons, and protons in high energy proton proton and proton lead collisions at the LHCb experiment at CERN. The goal of this work is to provide new constraints on the mass dependence of the Cronin enhancement in the nuclear modification factor and to contribute to a better understanding of gluon fragmentation functions. In addition, these measurements are crucial for improving Monte Carlo models, deepening our knowledge of soft interactions, and isolating Cold Nuclear Matter effects in proton lead collisions, in order to distinguish them from the signatures of the Quark Gluon Plasma in lead lead collisions that will be investigated in future studies. The unique forward and backward kinematic coverage of LHCb allows probing various cold nuclear matter effects across a wide range of Bjorken x.