  We study the nuclear modification factors RAA and RCP of the high transverse
momentum 5<pt<60 GeV/c distribution of muons in Pb--Pb collisions at LHC
energies. We consider two pseudo-rapidity ranges covered by the LHC
experiments: $|\eta|<2.5$ and $2.5<\eta<4$. Muons from semi-leptonic decays of
heavy quarks (c and b) and from leptonic decays of weak gauge bosons (W and Z)
are the main contributions to the muon pt distribution above a few GeV/c. We
compute the heavy quark contributions using available pQCD-based programs. We
include the nuclear shadowing modification of the parton distribution functions
and the in-medium radiative energy loss for heavy quarks, using the
mass-dependent BDMPS quenching weights. Muons from W and Z leptonic decays,
that dominate the yield at high pt, can be used as a medium-blind reference to
observe the medium-induced suppression of beauty quarks.
