Charmonium and open charm production in nuclear collisions at SPS/FAIR energies and the possible influence of a hot hadronic medium

TL;DR

This paper predicts charmonium and open charm production in nuclear collisions at SPS/FAIR energies using the statistical hadronization model, highlighting the significance of Lambda_c production and medium effects on charmonium yields.

Contribution

It introduces predictions for charm production at lower energies and discusses the impact of a hot hadronic medium on charmonium and D-meson yields.

Findings

Lambda_c production increases at lower energies.

Medium effects influence charmonium yields across energies.

D-meson production cross sections remain largely unaffected.

Abstract

We provide predictions for charmonium and open charm production in nuclear collisions at SPS/FAIR energies within the framework of the statistical hadronization model. The increasing importance at lower energies of Lambda_c production is demonstrated and provides a challenge for future experiments. We also demonstrate that, because of the large charm quark mass and the different timescales for charm quark and charmed hadron production, possible modifications of charmed hadrons in the hot hadronic medium do not lead to measurable changes in cross sections for D-meson production. A possible influence of medium effects can be seen, however, in yields of charmonium. These effects are visible at all energies and results are presented for the energy range between charm threshold and RHIC energy.