Speaker
Katarina Gajdosova
(Czech Technical University in Prague)
Description
Properties of Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) are being studied in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). One of the experimental probes that enable us to reveal the properties of the hot and dense strongly interacting medium are heavy quarks, such as $c$ and $b$. These quarks are created during the early stages of heavy-ion collisions and therefore their production is not affected before the QGP phase. Non-Photonic Electrons (NPE) that originate from semileptonic decays of $D$ and $B$ mesons can serve as a good proxy for heavy flavor quarks. NPE in both p+p and Au+Au collisions are measured at RHIC. The p+p collisions are important as a baseline for the comparison with heavy-ion collisions and to test pQCD calculations. In Au+Au collisions the nuclear modification factor $R_{AA}$ is measured, which is sensitive to the effects of QGP on heavy quarks. Also the elliptic flow $v_2$ is important to further study the interaction between the heavy quarks and the medium.
In this talk measurements of NPE in p+p collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 200$ GeV in a wide transverse momentum range of $p_T = 0.5 - 12$ GeV/c will be presented. Also, the $R_{AA}$ of NPE in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 200$ GeV will be discussed. The dependence of NPE production and elliptic flow on the collision energy in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 39, 62.4$ and $200$ GeV will be shown. Finally, the status of the NPE analysis in U+U collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 193$ GeV will be presented.
Primary author
Katarina Gajdosova
(Czech Technical University in Prague)
