2012 Fall Meeting of the APS Division of Nuclear Physics
Volume 57, Number 9
Wednesday–Saturday, October 24–27, 2012;
Newport Beach, California
Session FD: New Heavy Quark Results in Heavy-Ion Physics
4:00 PM–5:48 PM,
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Room: Patio
Chair: Kenneth Barish, University of California, Riverside
Abstract ID: BAPS.2012.DNP.FD.3
Abstract: FD.00003 : Heavy flavours in Pb-Pb collisions at the LHC
5:12 PM–5:48 PM
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Abstract
Author:
Francesco Prino
(INFN Sezione di Torino)
In this talk, the heavy flavour measurements performed by the LHC experiments
will be reviewed and their role in the characterization of the medium
created in these collisions will be discussed.
Heavy-flavour hadrons, containing charm and beauty, are powerful probes of the
hot and dense medium that is formed in high-energy collisions of heavy nuclei.
Charm and beauty quarks are produced in partonic scatterings with
high-virtuality occurring in the initial stages of the collision.
Afterwards, they traverse the medium, losing energy via gluon radiation and
elastic collisions with the partonic constituents.
The abundant production of charm and beauty at the LHC enables to measure
heavy flavour related observables in Pb-Pb collisions with unprecedented
precision.
The measurement of the nuclear modification factor of heavy quarks provides
a benchmark for the energy loss models that are able to describe the
light quark observables.
Indeed, radiative energy loss models predict that quarks lose less
energy than gluons (that have a larger colour charge) and that the amount of
radiated energy decreases with increasing quark mass.
Another observable that is sensitive to the interaction of charm and beauty
quarks with the medium is the presence of anisotropic patterns in the
azimuthal distribution of final state particles.
In particular, the second harmonic of the Fourier expansion of the particle
azimuthal distribution, called elliptic flow, $v_2$, has been measured
for heavy flavour hadrons at the LHC.
At low transverse momenta, a finite $v_2$ for heavy flavours in non central
collisions is expected if charm and beauty quarks suffer re-scatterings
in the medium, leading to their thermalization and participation
to the collective motion (flow).
At higher transverse momenta, a non-zero $v_2$ is anticipated as a consequence
of the path length dependence of energy loss in collisions with non-zero
impact parameter.
To cite this abstract, use the following reference: http://meetings.aps.org/link/BAPS.2012.DNP.FD.3