Experimental Highlights: Heavy Quark Physics in Heavy-Ion Collisions at RHIC

Physics Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York 11973, United States

^a e-mail: rachid.nouicer@bnl.gov

Published online: 22 March 2017

Abstract

The discovery at RHIC of large high-p_T suppression and flow of electrons from heavy quarks flavors have altered our view of the hot and dense matter formed in central Au + Au collisions at √s_NN = 200 GeV. These results suggest a large energy loss and flow of heavy quarks in the hot, dense matter. In recent years, the RHIC experiments upgraded the detectors; (1) PHENIX Collaboration installed silicon vertex tracker (VTX) at midrapidity region and forward silicon vertex tracker (FVTX) at the forward rapidity region, and (2) STAR Collaboration installed the heavy flavor tracker (HFT) and the muon telescope detector (MTD) both at the mid-rapidity region. The PHENIX experiments established measurements of ψ (1S ) and ψ (2S ) production as a function of system size, p + p, p + Al, p + Au, and ³He + Au collisions at √s_NN = 200 GeV. In p/³He + A collisions at forward rapidity, we observe no difference in the ψ (2S )/ψ (1S ) ratio relative to p + p collisions. At backward rapidity, where the comoving particle density is higher, we find that the ψ (2S ) is preferentially suppressed by a factor of two. STAR Collaboration presents the first J/ ψ measurements in the di-muon decay channel in Au + Au at √s_NN = 200 GeV at mid-rapidity. We observe a clear J/ψ R_AA suppression and qualitatively well described by transport models, including dissociation and regeneration simultaneously.