D-meson propagation in hot dense matter

TL;DR

This paper calculates the drag force and diffusion coefficients for D mesons in hot dense hadronic matter, exploring their propagation at different baryochemical potentials relevant for various heavy-ion collision experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a unitarized effective model approach to evaluate D meson transport properties, considering both zero and finite baryochemical potentials, and analyzes their implications for heavy-ion collision experiments.

Findings

Negligible baryon contribution at zero chemical potential.

Large correction to transport coefficients at finite baryochemical potential.

Reduced relaxation time leading to more thermalized D mesons at FAIR energies.

Abstract

The drag force and diffusion coefficients for a D meson are calculated in hot dense matter composed of light mesons and baryons, such as it is formed in heavy-ion collisions. We use a unitarized approach based on effective models for the interaction of a D meson with hadrons, which are compatible with chiral and heavy quark symmetries. We study the propagation of the D meson in the hadron matter in two distinct cases. On the one hand, we analyze the propagation of D mesons in matter at vanishing baryochemical potential, which is relevant for high-energetic collisions at LHC or RHIC. On the other hand, we show the propagation of D mesons in the hadronic medium following isentropic trajectories, appropiate at FAIR and NICA heavy-ion experiments. We find a negligible baryon contribution to the transport coefficients at vanishing chemical potential. However at finite baryochemical potential we obtain a large correction to the transport coefficients with the inclusion of nucleons and Delta baryons. The relaxation time for D mesons is reduced a factor 2-3 in the later case, producing a more thermalized D meson-spectrum for FAIR physics than for the typical LHC energies. We finally present results for the spatial diffusion coefficient of a D meson in hadronic matter and the possible existence of a minimum near the phase transition to the quark-gluon plasma at zero and finite baryochemical potential.