Measurements of heavy quark production via single leptons at PHENIX

TL;DR

This paper reports on measurements of single leptons from heavy-flavor hadron decays in proton-proton and gold-gold collisions at 200 GeV, comparing results with pQCD predictions and analyzing azimuthal anisotropy.

Contribution

It provides new experimental data on heavy-quark production via single leptons at RHIC energies and compares these with theoretical calculations.

Findings

Single muons measured at forward rapidity in pp collisions.

Single electrons measured at mid-rapidity in pp and AuAu collisions.

Updated v2(pT) measurement shows azimuthal anisotropy for heavy-flavor electrons.

Abstract

The measurement of single leptons from the semi-leptonic decay of heavy-flavor hadrons has long been a means for studying heavy-quark production. PHENIX has measured single muons in pp collisions at forward rapidity and single electrons in both pp and AuAu collisions at mid-rapidity at sqrt(s_NN)=200 GeV. The most recent PHENIX single lepton results are presented in the context of state-of-the-art pQCD calculations. An updated azimuthal anisotropy, v2(pT), measurement for heavy-flavor single electrons in AuAu collisions is also presented.