The J/ψ production is sensitive to the presence of the deconfined state of quarks and gluons, quark-gluon plasma (QGP), which is expected to form in ultrarelativistic nuclear collisions. Measurements of non-prompt J/ψ originating from the weak decays of b-hadrons, can provide an estimate of beauty quark production in nuclear collisions. It is observed that the production of non-prompt J/ψ is modified in Pb−Pb collisions in comparison to that in pp collisions at the same energy scaled by the number of binary collisions, as quantified by nuclear modification factors (RAA). It is related to hot medium effects taking place during the QGP phase. The measurement of nuclear modification factors in p−Pb collisions is used to assess the so-called Cold Nuclear Matter (CNM) effects which can further modify the production yields of non-prompt J/ψ in collisions involving heavy-ions. The ALICE detector has excellent capabilities to measure J/ψ in the e+e− decay channel at midrapidity down to zero transverse momentum (pT) allowing the statistical separation of the non-prompt J/ψ component for pT down to pT = 1 GeV/c.
In this contribution \textendash , ALICE midrapidity results on non-prompt J/ψ production cross sections in pp collisions are presented and compared with the theoretical models. Moreover, RAA of non-prompt J/ψ at midrapidity as a function of pT in p−Pb collisions at the center-of-mass energy per nucleon pair √sNN = 5.02 TeV are presented and further compared with RAA of non-prompt J/ψ in Pb−Pb collisions at √sNN = 2.76 TeV. Furthermore, results are compared with theoretical predictions.
