Measurement of the production of high- electrons from heavy-flavour hadron decays in Pb–Pb collisions at

Electrons from heavy-flavour hadron decays (charm and beauty) were measured with the ALICE detector in Pb–Pb collisions at a centre-of-mass of energy $\sqrt{{s}_{\mathrm{NN}}}=2.76\text{}\text{TeV}$. The transverse momentum (${p}_{T}$) differential production yields at mid-rapidity were used to calculate the nuclear modification factor ${R}_{\mathrm{AA}}$ in the interval $3<{p}_{T}<18$ GeV/c. The ${R}_{\mathrm{AA}}$ shows a strong suppression compared to binary scaling of pp collisions at the same energy (up to a factor of 4) in the 10% most central Pb–Pb collisions. There is a centrality trend of suppression, and a weaker suppression (down to a factor of 2) in semi-peripheral (50–80%) collisions is observed. The suppression of electrons in this broad ${p}_{T}$ interval indicates that both charm and beauty quarks lose energy when they traverse the hot medium formed in Pb–Pb collisions at LHC.