Fluid dynamics of charm quarks in the quark--gluon plasma

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel fluid-dynamic model for charm-quark diffusion in the quark-gluon plasma, successfully describing experimental data and revealing rapid charm quark hydrodynamization in heavy-ion collisions.

Contribution

It develops the first fluid-dynamic approach to charm-quark diffusion in the QGP, integrating a heavy-quark current and lattice QCD diffusion constants.

Findings

Quantitative agreement with LHC data up to 4-5 GeV/c

Charm quarks undergo rapid hydrodynamization

Fluid-dynamic model accurately describes charm hadron yields and momentum distributions

Abstract

A fluid-dynamic approach to charm-quark diffusion in the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) is developed for the first time. Results for integrated yields and momentum distributions of charmed hadrons obtained with a fluid-dynamic description for the dynamics of the QGP coupled to an additional heavy-quark-antiquark current are shown. In addition to the thermodynamic Equation of State (EoS), this description uses a heavy-quark diffusion constant which we take from Lattice QCD calculations. The results describe quantitatively experimental data measured at the LHC at the center-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}$ = 5.02 TeV up to $p_{\rm T}\sim$ 4-5 GeV/$c$, showing that charm quarks undergo a very fast hydrodynamization in the medium created by ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions.