Directed Flow of D and B Mesons in an Electrically and Chirally Conductive QGP at LHC Energies

TL;DR

This paper studies how electromagnetic fields in the quark-gluon plasma at LHC energies influence the directed flow of D and B mesons, revealing the dominant role of electrical conductivity and suggesting experimental measurements for insight.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed model incorporating electrical and chiral conductivities to analyze heavy meson flow, highlighting the secondary role of chiral conductivity and proposing experimental tests.

Findings

Electrical conductivity significantly affects electromagnetic field evolution.

Heavy mesons with charm and bottom quarks exhibit opposite directed flow signs.

Chiral conductivity has a marginal impact on the directed flow.

Abstract

We investigate the directed flow of D and B mesons in the presence of electromagnetic fields incorporating finite electrical and chiral conductivities at LHC energies. The momentum evolution of heavy quarks in the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) is studied using Langevin dynamics, with their interactions with the medium described within the extended quasiparticle model (QPMp) framework. The electromagnetic fields are obtained from analytical solutions of Maxwell equations that account for both electrical and chiral conductivities. These conductivities modify the space-time evolution of the electromagnetic fields and influence the splitting of the directed flow between mesons and anti-mesons. However, the influence of chiral conductivity remains secondary to that of electrical conductivity and its impact on the directed flow is marginal. The results show that heavy mesons containing a charm quark develop a directed flow with a sign opposite to that of heavy mesons containing a bottom quark, with a smaller magnitude for the latter. The present study indicates that a simultaneous experimental measurement of v1 for heavy mesons containing both charm and bottom quarks would provide valuable insight into the electromagnetic field origin of v1 for heavy quarks.