On the Measurement of D-meson Yield in Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions at the CERN SPS

TL;DR

This paper discusses the potential of measuring open charm (D-meson) yields in nucleus-nucleus collisions at CERN SPS to test theoretical models, highlighting large discrepancies in predictions and proposing experimental approaches for accurate measurement.

Contribution

It emphasizes the importance of open charm measurements for testing collision models and demonstrates how existing data can be used to obtain decisive results.

Findings

Predictions for D-meson multiplicity vary by over a factor of 100.

Open charm measurements can critically test pQCD and statistical models.

NA49 experiment data can provide decisive results on open charm yield.

Abstract

We argue that the measurement of open charm gives a unique opportunity to test the validity of pQCD-based and statistical models of nucleus-nucleus collisions at high energies. We show that various approaches used to estimate D-meson multiplicity in central Pb+Pb collisions at 158 A GeV give predictions which differ by more than a factor of 100. Finally we demonstrate that decisive experimental results concerning the open charm yield in A+A collisions can be obtained using data of the NA49 experiment at the CERN SPS.