Measurements of open heavy flavor in STAR experiment

Abstract

We present recent open heavy-flavor measurements performed with the STAR experiment at the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC). The production cross sections of charm quarks in p+p collisions at s = 200 and 500 GeV are determined through hadronic decay channels of D 0 and D ⁎ + mesons. These results are consistent with perturbative QCD calculations. Using p+p collisions as a reference, the nuclear modification factors R AA of D 0 meson production are extracted from Au+Au collisions at s NN = 200 GeV and U+U collisions at s NN = 193 GeV . Model calculations including charm–medium interactions and hadronization via both fragmentation and coalescence describe the measured D 0 R AA . Results are also reported on R AA and elliptic flow v 2 of non-photonic electrons (NPE) from semileptonic decays of open heavy-flavor hadrons. None of the existing model calculations simultaneously describe the NPE R AA and v 2 . Finally we give an outlook for heavy-flavor measurements with the newly upgraded STAR detector.