Correlations of electrons from heavy flavor decay in p+p, d+Au and Au+Au collisions

TL;DR

This paper investigates heavy flavor electron correlations in various collision systems to understand heavy quark production, interactions, and cold nuclear matter effects in relativistic heavy ion collisions.

Contribution

It provides new correlation measurements involving heavy flavor decay electrons with hadrons and muons across different collision systems, offering insights into heavy quark dynamics.

Findings

Electron-hadron correlations in p+p and Au+Au collisions reveal interaction patterns of heavy quarks.

Electron-muon correlations in p+p and d+Au collisions shed light on cold nuclear matter effects.

Results suggest modifications in heavy flavor interactions depending on the collision environment.

Abstract

In relativistic heavy ion collisions heavy flavor probes are crucial to understand the interactions between partons and the produced hot nuclear matter. Measurements in p+p collisions provide information about how the heavy quarks are produced and fragment and in d+Au collisions are sensitive to possible effects from cold nuclear matter. Azimuthal correlation measurements involving heavy flavor probes are complementary to single particle spectra measurements and provide additional information about production and interactions of heavy quarks. Measurements of electrons with heavy flavor decay with other hadrons from the event can provide information about how the heavy quark interacts with the produced matter and can be compared to similar measurements from light hadron correlations. Correlations between electrons from heavy flavor decay with muons, also from heavy flavor decay, can provide further information about heavy flavor production and cold nuclear matter effects in d+Au collisions with a very clean signal. We present PHENIX results for electron-hadron correlations in p+p and Au+Au collisions and electron-muon correlations in p+p and d+Au collisions and discuss the implications of these measurements.