Heavy-Quark Probes of the Quark-Gluon Plasma at RHIC

We investigate the consequences of space-momentum correlations in quark phase-space distributions for coalescence processes at the hadronization transition. Thus far it has been proved difficult to reconcile such correlations with the empirically observed constituent quark number scaling (CQNS) at the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC). To address this problem we combine our earlier developed quark recombination model with quark phase-space distributions computed from rel...

In the first part of the talk, we briefly review the problem of parton-energy loss and thermalization at the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider and discuss how heavy quarks (charm and bottom) can help to resolve the existing experimental and theoretical puzzles. The second part of the talk is devoted to the properties of heavy quarkonia in the (strongly interacting) Quark-Gluon Plasma (sQGP) and their consequences for observables in heavy-ion collisions.

We investigate the thermal production of charm quark in the strongly interacting quark-gluon plasma (sQGP) created in heavy-ion collisions at relativistic energies. Our study is based on the off-shell parton-hadron-string dynamics (PHSD) transport approach describing the full time evolution of heavy-ion collisions on a microscopic bases with hadronic and partonic degrees-of-freedom. The sQGP is realized within the effective dynamical quasi-particle model (DQPM) which is adjus...

We study charm production in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions by using the Parton-Hadron-String Dynamics (PHSD) transport approach. The initial charm quarks are produced by the Pythia event generator tuned to fit the transverse momentum spectrum and rapidity distribution of charm quarks from Fixed-Order Next-to-Leading Logarithm (FONLL) calculations. The produced charm quarks scatter in the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) with the off-shell partons whose masses and widths are...

After a few microseconds of the creation of our Universe through the Big Bang, the primordial matter was believed to be a soup of the fundamental constituents of matter -- quarks and gluons. This is expected to be created in the laboratory by colliding heavy nuclei at ultra-relativistic speeds. A plasma of quarks and gluons, called Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) can be created at the energy and luminosity frontiers in the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), at Brookhaven Nation...

The drag and diffusion coefficients of charm and bottom quarks propagating through quark gluon plasma (QGP) have been evaluated within the framework of perturbative Quantum Chromodynamics (pQCD). Both radiative and collisional processes of dissipation are included in evaluating these transport coefficients. The dead cone as well as the LPM effects on radiative energy loss of heavy quarks have also been considered. The Fokker Planck equation has been solved to study the dissip...

The production of heavy quarks (charm and beauty) provides unique insights into the transport properties of the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) in heavy-ion collisions. Experimentally, the nuclear modification factor ${{R}_{\rm AA}}$ and the azimuthal anisotropy coefficient ${v}_{\rm 2}$ of heavy-flavor mesons are powerful observables to study the medium-related effects, such as energy loss and collectivity, on the heavy quark propagation through the QGP evolution. The latest measur...

We investigate the thermalization of charm quarks in high energy heavy ion collisions. To this end, we calculate the diffusion coefficient in the perturbative Quark Gluon Plasma and relate it to collisional energy loss and momentum broadening. We then use these transport properties to formulate a Langevin model for the evolution of the heavy quark spectrum in the hot medium. The model is strictly valid in the non-relativistic limit and for all velocities $\gamma v < \alphas^{...

The heavy quark propagation behavior inside the quark-gluon plasma (QGP), is usually described in terms of the Boltzmann dynamics, which can be reduced to the Langevin approach by assuming a small momentum transfer for the scattering processes between heavy quarks and the QGP constituents. In this work, the temperature and energy dependence of the transport coefficients are calculated in the framework of both Boltzmann and Langevin dynamics. The derived transport coefficients...

In ultrarelativistic nuclear collisions heavy quarks are produced out of thermal equilibrium in the very early stage of the reaction and their thermalization time was expected to be considerably larger than that of light quarks. On the other hand, a strongly-interacting QGP can be envisaged in the heavy quark sector due to the presence of heavy-light hadron-like resonances in the QGP for temperatures up to $\sim$$2 T_{C}$. We investigate the consequences of such states employ...