The first study of W boson production in pPb collisions is presented, for bosons decaying to a muon or electron, and a neutrino. The measurements are based on a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 34.6nb−1at a nucleon–nucleon centre-of-mass energy of √sNN=5.02TeV, collected by the CMS experiment. The W boson differential cross sections, lepton charge asymmetry, and forward–backward asymmetries are measured for leptons of transverse momentum exceeding 25GeV/c, and as a function of the lepton pseudorapidity in the |ηlab| \u3c2.4range. Deviations from the expectations based on currently available parton distribution functions are observed, showing the need for including W boson data in nuclear parton distribution global fits
