Heavy-Flavor Measurements by the PHENIX Experiment at RHIC

TL;DR

The PHENIX experiment at RHIC has measured various heavy-flavor observables in different collision systems, providing insights into charm and beauty production, quarkonia behavior, and suppression patterns in high-energy nuclear collisions.

Contribution

This paper presents new measurements of heavy-flavor production, quarkonia yields, and suppression factors across p+p, d+Au, and Au+Au collisions at RHIC, expanding understanding of quark-gluon plasma effects.

Findings

Charm and beauty cross-sections measured in p+p collisions.

Suppression of $b$ and $b$ states observed in heavy-ion collisions.

Preliminary $R_{AA}$ and $R_{CP}$ results indicate medium effects on heavy-flavor production.

Abstract

In recent years, PHENIX has studied many important observables related to heavy-flavor physics through their leptonic decay measurements including the invariant yield of electrons from nonphotonic sources, and prompt single muons, both of which are dominated by D and B mesons. Charm and beauty cross-sections were measured and compared through single lepton, and lepton-hadron correlations in p+p collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 200 GeV. Observables for quarkonia production such as invariant yield and polarization were also measured in p+p collisions. In Au+Au collisions, preliminary results for the $R_{AA}$ for single electrons and a 90% CL upper limit for the suppression of $\Upsilon$s were produced. And in $d$+Au collisions, a preliminary $R_{CP}$ study for $J/\psi$ production in different centrality ranges was extracted.