2019/05/31 by Min He, Ralf Rapp · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #nucl-th #hep-ph #nucl-ex
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.124.042301
published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 042301 (2020) · 6 pages, 5 figures, published version in Phys. Rev. Lett
arxiv created 2020/02/02 · arxiv updated 2020/02/05
Understanding the hadronization of the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) remains a challenging problem in the study of strong-interaction matter as produced in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions (URHICs). The large mass of heavy quarks renders them excellent tracers of the color neutralization process of the QGP when they convert into various heavy-flavor (HF) hadrons. We develop a 4-momentum conserving recombination model for HF mesons and baryons that recovers the thermal and chemical equilibrium limits and accounts for space-momentum correlations (SMCs) of heavy quarks with partons of the hydrodynamically expanding QGP, thereby resolving a long-standing problem in quark coalescence models. The SMCs enhance the recombination of fast-moving heavy quarks with high-flow thermal quarks in the outer regions of the fireball. We also improve the hadro-chemistry with "missing" charm-baryon states, previously found to describe the large Λc/D0 ratio observed in proton-proton collisions. Both SMCs and hadro-chemistry, as part of our HF hydro-Langevin-recombination model for the strongly coupled QGP, importantly figure in the description of recent data for the Λc/D0 ratio and D-meson elliptic flow in URHICs.