Theory and phenomenology of heavy flavor at the RHIC

Abstract

We review the problem of heavy-quark diffusion in the quark–gluon plasma and its ramifications for heavy-quark spectra in heavy-ion collisions at the RHIC. In particular, we attempt to reconcile underlying mechanisms of several seemingly different approaches that have been put forward to explain the large suppression and elliptic flow of non-photonic electron spectra. We also emphasize the importance of a quantitative description of the bulk medium evolution to extract reliable values for the heavy-quark diffusion coefficient.