Charm quarks as a probe of matter produced in relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions

Yasir Ali,Paweł Staszel,L Bravina,Y Foka,S Kabana

doi:10.1051/epjconf/20147100004

Yasir Ali, Paweł Staszel + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/20147100004

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Abstract

Direct measurement of hadrons containing charm quark carries important in- formation about the initial stage of the nucleus-nucleus collision at relativistic energies. The study of open charm in Pb-Pb collisions at SPS energies will be a powerful tool to investigate the production of heavy flavours and their interaction with the medium pro- duced in such collisions. A feasibility study was initiated for the measurement of the D 0 mesons (open charm) by its two-body decay into pion and kaon in central Pb-Pb col- lision at SPS energies in NA61/SHINE experiment. To generate the physical input we used AMPT (A Multi Phase Transport Model) event generator and employed GEANT4 application to describe particle transport through the NA61/SHINE experimental setup supplemented by a future vertex detector (VD) that will allow for precise vertex recon- struction close to the primary interaction point. The results of the simulation shows that this measurement is feasible with a dedicated VD which allows the precise tracking close to the target.

Highlights

Direct measurement of hadrons containing charm quark carries important information about the initial stages of the nucleus-nucleus collision at relativistic energies
During the last 4 decades an approach based on perturbative Quantum Chromodynamics was formulated and used for the interpretation of open and hidden charm experimental data [1]
The approach is based on the assumption that perturbative Quantum Chromodynamics (pQCD) can describe charm production in elementary hadronic and nuclear collisions and that charmonium creation is due to binding interaction between c − cquarks

Summary

Introduction

Direct measurement of hadrons containing charm quark carries important information about the initial stages of the nucleus-nucleus collision at relativistic energies. The charm-quarks and hadrons are of vivid interest in the context of the phase transition between confined hadronic matter and the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) [2, 3]. A feasibility study is developed for the measurement of the D0 mesons in Pb+Pb collision at SPS energies. This study is done for the top SPS energy of 158A GeV and for the lower energy of 40A GeV

Physics Motivation

Simulation and Results

Conclusion