Heavy flavor nuclear modification factor: more baryons than mesons less energy loss

TL;DR

This paper proposes that the observed suppression of heavy flavor hadrons in nuclear collisions can be explained by quark recombination effects increasing heavy baryon production, reducing the need for strong energy loss explanations.

Contribution

It introduces a model incorporating quark recombination effects to explain heavy flavor suppression without requiring excessive energy loss.

Findings

Recombination effects increase heavy baryon to meson ratios in nuclear collisions.

Moderate energy loss combined with recombination explains RHIC and LHC data.

The model aligns well with experimental observations of heavy flavor suppression.

Abstract

The suppression of the nuclear modification factor for heavy flavor hadrons is usually attributed to the energy loss of heavy quarks propagating in a QCD plasma. Nevertheless it is puzzling that the suppression is as strong as for light flavors. We show that when accounting for the quark momentum shift associated to the opening of the recombination/coalescence channel for hadron production in the plasma, it is not necessary to invoke such strong energy loss. This shift is expressed in terms of an increase of the heavy baryon to meson ratio in nuclear with respect to proton collisions. When this mechanism is included along with a moderate energy loss, data from RHIC and LHC for the nuclear modification factor of electrons coming from heavy flavor decays as well as of charm mesons, can be reasonably described.