Production of $D_{s}^{\pm}$ mesons in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{_{\rm NN}}}$ = 200 GeV by STAR

TL;DR

This paper reports measurements of $D_{s}^{ m ootnotesize extpm}$ meson production in Au+Au collisions at 200 GeV, revealing insights into charm quark hadronization and strangeness enhancement in the quark-gluon plasma.

Contribution

It provides new experimental data on $D_{s}^{ m ootnotesize extpm}$ yields and their ratios to $D^{0}$, supporting models of charm quark recombination with strange quarks in the QGP.

Findings

Enhanced $D_{s}^{ m ootnotesize extpm}$ production relative to PYTHIA

Qualitative agreement with models including strangeness enhancement

Evidence for charm quark recombination with strange quarks

Abstract

Charm quarks are an excellent probe to study properties of the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) created in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions. In particular, measurements of the $D_{s}^{\pm}$ meson production can provide valuable information on the charm quark hadronization mechanism in the QGP. We report the measurements from the STAR experiment on the invariant yields of $D_{s}^{\pm}$ mesons as a function of transverse momentum for different centrality classes of Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{_{\rm NN}}}$ = 200 GeV. These measurements utilize the data with the Heavy Flavor Tracker detector from 2014 and 2016. The ratio between strange ($D_{s}^{\pm}$) and non-strange ($D^{0}$) open charm mesons will also be shown, and compared to PYTHIA and different model calculations. A clear enhancement relative to the PYTHIA calculation is seen in the ratio, while different model calculations incorporating strangeness enhancement and charm quark coalescence hadronization can describe the observed enhancement qualitatively. These results suggest that recombination of charm quarks with strange quarks in the QGP plays an important role in charm quark hadronization.