Collisional vs. Radiative Energy Loss of Heavy Quark in a Hot and Dense Nuclear Matter

TL;DR

This paper investigates heavy quark energy loss in quark-gluon plasma by combining Langevin dynamics with hydrodynamics, incorporating both collisional and radiative processes, and successfully explains experimental D meson suppression data.

Contribution

It introduces a modified Langevin approach that includes medium-induced gluon radiation as an additional force, enhancing the modeling of heavy quark energy loss in hot dense nuclear matter.

Findings

Gluon radiation significantly affects heavy quark energy loss at LHC energies.

The model accurately reproduces ALICE D meson suppression data.

Predictions are made for B meson suppression and flow.

Abstract

We study the heavy quark evolution in a quark-gluon plasma medium within the framework of Langevin equation coupled to a (2+1)-dimensional viscous hydrodynamic model. We modify the current Langevin algorithm such that apart from quasi-elastic scattering, medium-induced radiative energy loss is incorporated as well by treating gluon radiation as an extra force term. We find a significant effect of gluon radiation on heavy quark energy loss at LHC energies. Our calculation provides a good description of the D meson suppression measured by ALICE experiment, and makes a prediction for B meson suppression and flow.