Charmed meson and charmonium production in PbPb collisions at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the production of $J/$ and $D$ mesons in PbPb collisions at the LHC, showing how a two-component model can reproduce observed spectra and flow, and revealing different freeze-out behaviors.

Contribution

It introduces a phenomenological analysis using the HYDJET++ model to describe charm meson production and their interaction with the medium in heavy-ion collisions.

Findings

$D$-mesons are in kinetic equilibrium with the medium.

$J/\psi$-mesons freeze out earlier than light hadrons.

The model successfully reproduces momentum spectra and elliptic flow data.

Abstract

The phenomenological analysis of various characteristics of $J/\psi$ and $D$ meson production in PbPb collisions at the center-of-mass energy 2.76 TeV per nucleon pair is presented. The data on momentum spectra and elliptic flow are reproduced by two-component model HYDJET++ including thermal and non-thermal charm production mechanisms. The significant part of $D$-mesons is found to be in a kinetic equilibrium with the created medium, while $J/\psi$-mesons are characterized by earlier (as compared to light hadrons) freeze-out.