Recent PHENIX Results on Open Heavy Flavor

Abstract

Throughout the history of the RHIC physics program, questions concerning the dynamics of heavy quarks have generated much experimental and theoretical investigation. A major focus of the PHENIX experiment is the measurement of these quarks through their semi-leptonic decay channels at mid and forward rapidity. Heavy quark measurements in $p+p$ collisions give information on the production of heavy flavor, without complications from medium effects. New measurements in $d+$Au and Cu+Cu indicate surprising cold nuclear matter effects on these quarks at midrapidity, and provide a new baseline for interpretation of the observed suppression in Au+Au collisions. When considered all together, these measurements present a detailed study of nuclear matter across a wide range of system size and temperature. Here we present preliminary PHENIX measurements of non-photonic electron spectra and their centrality dependence in $d$+Au and Cu+Cu, and discuss their implications on the current understanding of parton energy loss in the nuclear medium.

4 pages, 3 figures, to appear in the proceedings of Quark Matter 2011

References in corpus (7)

• Heavy quark colorimetry of QCD matter
• Energy Loss and Flow of Heavy Quarks in Au+Au Collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV
• QCD Predictions for Charm and Bottom Production at RHIC
• Measurement of high-p_T Single Electrons from Heavy-Flavor Decays in p+p Collisions at sqrt(s) = 200 GeV
• Nuclear Effects on Hadron Production in d+Au and p+p Collisions at sqrt(s_NN)=200 GeV
• Measurement of Bottom versus Charm as a Function of Transverse Momentum with Electron-Hadron Correlations in p+p Collisions at sqrt(s)=200 GeV
• Measurement of the Bottom contribution to non-photonic electron production in $p+p$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}$=200 GeV