Large Directed Flow of Open Charm Mesons Probes the Three-Dimensional Distribution of Matter in Heavy-Ion Collisions

2017/12/31 by Sandeep Chatterjee, Piotr Bożek · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Charged particle #Charm (quantum number) #Charm quark #D meson #Elliptic flow #Flow (mathematics) #Hadron #Heavy ion #High-Energy Particle Collisions Research #Ion #Meson #Nuclear physics #Particle physics #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Physics #Plane (geometry) #Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions #Quark #Quark–gluon plasma #Rapidity #Strange matter #hep-ex #hep-ph #nucl-ex #nucl-th

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.120.192301

published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 192301 (2018)

arxiv created 2018/05/10 · openalex publication_date 2018/05/10 · arxiv updated 2018/05/11 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

Thermalized matter created in noncentral relativistic heavy-ion collisions is expected to be tilted in the reaction plane with respect to the beam axis. The most notable consequence of this forward-backward symmetry breaking is the observation of rapidity-odd directed flow for charged particles. On the other hand, the production points for heavy quarks are forward-backward symmetric and shifted in the transverse plane with respect to the fireball. The drag on heavy quarks from the asymmetrically distributed thermalized matter generates substantial directed flow for heavy flavor mesons. We predict a very large rapidity-odd directed flow of D mesons in noncentral Au-Au collisions at sqrt[s_NN]=200 GeV, several times larger than for charged particles. A possible experimental observation of a large directed flow for heavy flavor mesons would represent an almost direct probe of the three-dimensional distribution of matter in heavy-ion collisions.

Citations

• Heavy-quark probes of the quark-gluon plasma and interpretation of recent data taken at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider
• Novel Rapidity Dependence of Directed Flow in High-Energy Heavy-Ion Collisions
• Longitudinal decorrelation of anisotropic flows in heavy-ion collisions at the CERN Large Hadron Collider
• Long range forward–backward correlations and the color glass condensate
• A 3+1 dimensional viscous hydrodynamic code for relativistic heavy ion collisions
• Pseudorapidity distributions of charged particles in d+Au and p+p collisions at

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