Non-photonic electron-hadron correlations and non-photonic electron v2 at STAR/RHIC

Abstract

Non-photonic electrons ( p T > 3 GeV / c ) represent the directions of the parent heavy quarks, and their angular correlations with charged hadrons provide a good tool to study the relative contributions from D and B meson decays in p+p collisions, as well as the flavor-dependence of the energy loss mechanism in A+A collisions. We review the disentanglement of charm and bottom contributions to non-photonic electrons in p+p collisions at s = 200 GeV at RHIC. B decay contribution is approximately 50% at the electron transverse momentum of p T > 5 GeV / c from STAR results. Incorporating the energy loss ( R AA ) information of non-photonic electrons, the result indicates a B meson suppression at high p T in heavy ion collisions. We also present non-photonic electron-hadron correlations in d+Au collisions as a baseline reference for the investigation of the heavy quark energy loss in A+A collisions. The interactions between heavy quarks and the QCD medium can lead to a non-zero “elliptic flow” parameter ( v 2) of D and B mesons which can be studied through v 2 of non-photonic electrons. Preliminary v 2 measurements for non-photonic electrons are shown to be lower than v 2 of charged hadrons (or K S 0 , Λ ) for 200 GeV Au+Au collisions.