Updates on Flavor Production from STAR

Sooraj Radhakrishnan

doi:10.1051/epjconf/202225901006

Abstract

In these proceedings, some of the latest results from the STAR experiment on heavy, strange and light flavor hadron production and their flow are summarized. Over the years STAR has collected heavy ion collision data over a wide range of collision energies from √SNN = 200 GeV down to √SNN = 3 GeV. In high energy heavy ion collisions, heavy flavor hadrons are a valuable probe to study properties of the Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP) created in these collisions. Measurements of strange and light flavor hadrons at lower collision energies help understand the properties of the QCD matter at finite baryon densities and the phase structure of the QCD matter. Furthermore, the high statistics data collected at √SNN = 3 GeV allows measurements of hypernuclei production and flow, which can provide insights into the hyperon - nucleon interactions and hyperon contribution to the nuclear equation of state.

Highlights

Measurements of elliptic flow (v2 ) of D mesons and electrons from heavy flavor hadron decays (HFE) in heavy-ion collisions at top RHIC energy and LHC energies show comparable values to those of light flavor hadrons, indicating that charm quarks interact strongly with the Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP) at these energies [1, 2]
The large positive values of v2 and its number of constituent quark (NCQ) scaling observed for identified hadrons in high energy heavy-ion collisions have been argued as evidence for the creation of a strongly interacting QGP [13]
Statistical thermal models have been successful in describing the hadron yields in heavy-ion collisions [17]

Summary

Introduction

Measurements of elliptic flow (v2 ) of D mesons and electrons from heavy flavor hadron decays (HFE) in heavy-ion collisions at top RHIC energy and LHC energies show comparable values to those of light flavor hadrons, indicating that charm quarks interact strongly with the Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP) at these energies [1, 2]. (Right) The v2 of HFE as a function of pT in 0-60% Au+Au collisions at sNN = 54.4 GeV compared to different model calculations [7, 8]. Measurements of the J/ψ suppression at a lower collision energy of sNN = 54.4 GeV, where the charm quark production cross-section and the regeneration contribution are lower, can help better understand the in-medium J/ψ dissociation. The error bands indicate statistical uncertainties and boxes indicate the combined systematic, Ncoll and p+p baseline uncertainties

Disappearance of partonic collectivity at sNN = 3 GeV

Canonical suppression of strangeness production

Summary