Single electron yields from semileptonic charm and bottom hadron decays in Au$+$Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200$ GeV

Abstract

The PHENIX Collaboration at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider has measured open heavy-flavor production in minimum bias Au$+$Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{{}_{NN}}}=200$ GeV via the yields of electrons from semileptonic decays of charm and bottom hadrons. Previous heavy-flavor electron measurements indicated substantial modification in the momentum distribution of the parent heavy quarks due to the quark-gluon plasma created in these collisions. For the first time, using the PHENIX silicon vertex detector to measure precision displaced tracking, the relative contributions from charm and bottom hadrons to these electrons as a function of transverse momentum are measured in Au$+$Au collisions. We compare the fraction of electrons from bottom hadrons to previously published results extracted from electron-hadron correlations in $p$$+$$p$ collisions at $\sqrt{s_{{}_{NN}}}=200$ GeV and find the fractions to be similar within the large uncertainties on both measurements for $p_T>4$ GeV/$c$. We use the bottom electron fractions in Au$+$Au and $p$$+$$p$ along with the previously measured heavy flavor electron $R_{AA}$ to calculate the $R_{AA}$ for electrons from charm and bottom hadron decays separately. We find that electrons from bottom hadron decays are less suppressed than those from charm for the region $3<p_T<4$ GeV/$c$.

432 authors, 33 pages, 23 figures, 2 tables, 2011 data. v2 is version accepted for publication by Phys. Rev. C. Plain text data tables for the points plotted in figures for this and previous PHENIX publications are (or will be) publicly available at http://www.phenix.bnl.gov/papers.html

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• Measurement of electrons from beauty-hadron decays in p-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}=5.02$ TeV and Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}=2.76$ TeV
• Measurement of the nuclear modification factor of $b$-jets in 5.02 TeV Pb+Pb collisions with the ATLAS detector
• Searching for QGP droplets with high-$p_T$ hadrons and heavy flavor
• Short path length corrections to Djordjevic-Gyulassy-Levai-Vitev energy loss
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• Evidence of Mass Ordering of Charm and Bottom Quark Energy Loss in Au+Au Collisions at RHIC
• Charm and beauty in the deconfined plasma from quenched lattice QCD
• Measurement of Non-prompt ${\mathrm{D}}^0$-meson Elliptic Flow in Pb-Pb Collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}$ = 5.02 TeV
• Measurements of $B\to J/\psi$ at forward rapidity in $p$$+$$p$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}=510$ GeV
• PHENIX measurements of single electrons from charm and bottom decays at midrapidity in Au+Au collisions
• Measurement of beauty-strange meson production in Pb$-$Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}=5.02$ TeV via non-prompt ${{\mathrm{D}}_{\mathrm{s}}}^{+}$ mesons
• Measurement of charm and bottom production from semileptonic hadron decays in $p$$+$$p$ collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200$ GeV
• Measurement of electrons from beauty-hadron decays in pp and Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}$ = 5.02 TeV
• PHENIX Overview
• Charm- and Bottom-Quark Production in Au$+$Au Collisions at $\sqrt{s_{{}_{NN}}}$ = 200 GeV
• Recent Heavy Flavor Results Utilizing the FVTX in PHENIX at RHIC
• PHENIX Measurements of Single Electrons from Charm and Bottom Decays at Midrapidity in Au+Au Collisions