Open Heavy Flavor Production at Forward Angles in PHENIX

Abstract

The measurement of the nuclear modification factor ($R_{\mathrm{AA}}$) for heavy-flavor production in heavy-ion collisions tests predictions for cold- and hot-nuclear-matter effects. Heavy-flavor production in \pp\ collisions tests pQCD calculations and serves as a reference for understanding heavy-flavor production in heavy-ion collisions. Using the PHENIX muon-arm spectrometers, the transverse momentum spectra of inclusive muon candidates are measured for \pp\ and $\cucu$ collisions at $\snn = 200$\,GeV. After subtracting backgrounds, we obtain the measured invariant yields of negative muons from the decay of heavy flavor mesons. For \pp\ collisions, we measure the charm-production cross section integrated over $\pt$ and in the rapidity range $1.4<y<1.9$ to be $d{\sigma }_{c\bar{c}}/dy=0.139\pm 0.029{(\mathrm{stat})}_{-0.058}^{+0.051}(\mathrm{syst})$ mb. This result is compared to a recent FONLL calculation and to a PHENIX measurement at mid-rapidity. For $\cucu$ collisions, we measure the $R_{\mathrm{AA}}$ for heavy-flavor muons in three centrality bins for $1<\pt<4$ GeV/$c$, with suppression observed for central collisions. We compare our measurement for central collisions to a recent theoretical prediction.

4 pages, 2 figures; merged two figures, added one reference, minor revisions to text for clarity, results unchanged; proceeding for the Fifth International Conference on Hard and Electromagnetic Probes of High-Energy Nuclear Collisions (Hard Probes 2012), 27 May - 1 June 2012, Cagliari, Italy

References in corpus (4)

• Glauber Modeling in High Energy Nuclear Collisions
• Measurement of high-p_T Single Electrons from Heavy-Flavor Decays in p+p Collisions at sqrt(s) = 200 GeV
• A light-cone wavefunction approach to open heavy flavor dynamics in QCD matter
• Nuclear-Modification Factor for Open-Heavy-Flavor Production at Forward Rapidity in Cu+Cu Collisions at sqrt(s_NN)=200 GeV