Heavy Quark and Quarkonium Transport in High Energy Nuclear Collisions

TL;DR

This paper reviews how heavy quarks and quarkonium serve as probes for the quark-gluon plasma in high energy nuclear collisions, highlighting their sensitivity to the medium's properties and the effects of nuclear matter.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of heavy quark and quarkonium transport phenomena across different collision energies and their implications for understanding the QCD medium.

Findings

Heavy quark and quarkonium yields are affected by cold and hot nuclear matter effects.

The ratio of quarkonium transverse momentum squared and elliptic flow reveal medium properties.

Transport observables vary with collision energy, indicating changes in the QCD medium.

Abstract

The strong interaction between heavy quarks and the quark gluon plasma makes the open and hidden charm hadrons be sensitive probes of the deconfinement phase transition in high energy nuclear collisions. Both the cold and hot nuclear matter effects change with the colliding energy and significantly influence the heavy quark and charmonium yield and their transverse momentum distributions. The ratio of averaged quarkonium transverse momentum square and the elliptic flow reveal the nature of the QCD medium created in heavy ion collisions at SPS, RHIC and LHC energies.