Heavy-quark azimuthal momentum correlations as a sensitive probe of thermalization

Abstract

In high-energy nuclear collisions the degree of thermalization at the partonic level is a key issue. Due to their large mass, heavy quarks and their possible participation in the collective flow of the QCD-medium constitute a powerful probe for thermalization. We present studies with PYTHIA for p+p collisions at the top LHC energy of $\sqrt{s}$ = 14 TeV applying the two-particle transverse momentum correlator $<\Delta p_{t,1},\Delta p_{t,2}>$ to pairs of heavy-quark hadrons and their semi-leptonic decay products as a function of their relative azimuth. Modifications or even the complete absence of initially existing correlations in Pb+Pb collisions might indicate thermalization at the partonic level.

7 pages, 5 figs.; accepted for publication in Nucl. Phys. A

References in corpus (8)

• Detailed measurement of the e+e- pair continuum in p+p and Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN)=200 GeV and implications for direct photon production
• Partonic flow and $\varphi$-meson production in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 200 GeV
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• Correlations of Heavy Quarks Produced at Large Hadron Collider
• Probing the Gluon Plasma with Charm Balance Functions
• Charm balance function in relativistic heavy-ion collisions
• Prompt production of D mesons with ALICE at the LHC