2006/08/29 by Denes Molnar, D. Molnar · 29 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Azimuth #Hadron #High-Energy Particle Collisions Research #Observable #Opacity #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Parton #Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions #Quark #Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider #Transport theory #nucl-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1140/epjc/s10052-006-0127-0
published in The European Physical Journal C 49(1), 181-186 (Springer Science+Business Media) · Talk at Hot Quarks 2006, Int. Workshop, May 15-20, 2006, Villasimius, Sardinia, Italy. 6 pages, 8 EPS figures, EPJ stylefile
arxiv created 2006/08/29 · openalex publication_date 2006/12/01 · arxiv updated 2011/09/13 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
There are several indications that an opaque partonic medium is created in energetic Au+Au collisions √(s) ~ 100 GeV/nucleon at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). At the extreme densities of ~ 10-100 times normal nuclear density reached even heavy-flavor hadrons are affected significantly. Heavy-quark observables are presented from the parton transport model MPC, focusing on the nuclear suppression pattern, azimuthal anisotropy ("elliptic flow"), and azimuthal correlations. Comparison with Au+Au data at top RHIC energy √(s) = 200 GeV indicates significant heavy quark rescattering, corresponding to roughly five times higher opacities than estimates based on leading-order perturbative QCD. We propose measurements of charm-anticharm, e.g., D-meson azimuthal correlations as a sensitive, independent probe to corroborate these findings.