2008/06/30 by Daniel Krieg, Dennis Krieg, Marcus Bleicher · 11 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Charm (quantum number) #Charm quark #Elliptic flow #Flow (mathematics) #High-Energy Particle Collisions Research #Mechanics #Meson #Nuclear physics #Particle physics #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Parton #Physics #Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions #Quantum mechanics #Quark #Signature (topology) #nucl-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1140/epja/i2008-10700-9
published in The European Physical Journal A 39(1), 1-4 (Springer Science+Business Media) · 4 pages, 3 figures; to be published in EPJ A; Changes: Added B-meson elliptic flow and data on non-photonic electron v_2 to Fig. 2; Added a plot showing the quark v_2; Added discussion about D^0 flow
arxiv created 2008/12/10 · openalex publication_date 2008/12/22 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We discuss one of the most prominent features of the very recent preliminary elliptic flow data of J/ψ-mesons from the PHENIX Collaboration (PHENIX Collaboration (C. Silvestre), arXiv:0806.0475 [nucl-ex]). Even within the rather large error bars of the measured data a negative elliptic flow parameter (v2) for J/ψ in the range of p T = 0.5-2.5 GeV/c is visible. We argue that this negative elliptic flow at intermediate pT is a clear and qualitative signature for the collectivity of charm quarks produced in nucleus-nucleus reactions at RHIC. Within a parton recombination approach we show that a negative elliptic flow puts a lower limit on the collective transverse velocity of heavy quarks. The numerical value of the transverse flow velocity βT for charm quarks that is necessary to reproduce the data is βT (charm) ∼ 0.55-0.6c and therefore compatible with the flow of light quarks.