Heavy-flavor meson and baryon production in high-energy nucleus-nucleus collisions

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new local recombination model for heavy-flavor hadronization in heavy-ion collisions, significantly affecting charmed hadron yields and flow by forming color-singlet clusters from charm quarks and light antiquarks or diquarks.

Contribution

The model provides a novel, local mechanism for heavy-flavor hadronization that enhances charmed baryon production and collective flow in relativistic heavy-ion collision simulations.

Findings

Enhanced charmed baryon production observed.

Strong space-momentum correlation in hadronization.

Increased collective flow of charmed hadrons.

Abstract

We present a new model for the description of heavy-flavor hadronization in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. We explore its effect on the charmed hadron yields and kinematic distributions once the latter is applied at the end of transport calculations used to simulate the propagation of heavy quarks in the deconfined fireball produced in the collision. The model is based on the formation of color-singlet clusters through the recombination of charm quarks with light antiquarks or diquarks from the same fluid cell. This local mechanism of color neutralization leads to a strong space-momentum correlation, which provides a substantial enhancement of charmed baryon production and of the collective flow of all charmed hadrons.