Heavy flavour in high-energy nuclear collisions: overview of transport calculations

TL;DR

This paper reviews the current state of transport calculations used to study heavy-flavour particles in high-energy nuclear collisions, highlighting recent advances and open questions in the field.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of transport models, their applications, and the unresolved issues in understanding medium modifications of heavy-flavour particles.

Findings

Transport coefficients are crucial for modeling medium effects.

In-medium hadronization and rescattering significantly influence particle distributions.

Hot-medium effects may also be relevant in small collision systems.

Abstract

Transport calculations are the tool to study medium modifications of heavy-flavour particle distributions in high-energy nuclear collisions. We give a brief overview on their state-of-the art as well as on the questions remaining open, from the evaluation of the transport coefficients to the effects of in-medium hadronization, from the rescattering in the hadronic phase to the possible presence of hot-medium effects also in small systems, like proton-nucleus collisions.