Speaker
Shanshan Cao
(Duke University)
Description
Heavy flavor serves as a valuable probe of the transport properties of the quark-gluon plasma created in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. Within the framework of a Langevin equation coupled to a (2+1)-dimensional viscous hydrodynamic model, we introduce an algorithm that incorporates not only collisional, but also radiative energy loss for heavy quarks by treating the medium-induced gluon radiation as a recoil force term for heavy quarks traversing the QGP matter. The subsequent hadronization process is calculated using a hybrid recombination plus fragmentation model. Within this improved transport framework, our calculation shows significant contributions from gluon radiation to heavy quark energy loss at high energies; the recombination mechanism is found important for heavy flavor meson production at intermediate energies. Our numerical results provide a good description of D meson suppression and flow measured at both RHIC and LHC, as well as predictions for the future measurements of B mesons. In addition, a new observable – the angular correlation function of heavy flavor pairs – is explored in our study and found to be a potential candidate for distinguishing different energy loss mechanisms of heavy quarks inside a QGP.
Keywords
Heavy flavor, Langevin equation, radiative energy loss, hadronization, angular correlation function.
Primary authors
Guang-You Qin
(Central Normal University)
Shanshan Cao
(Duke University)
Steffen Bass
(Duke University)
