B_c Mesons as a signal of deconfinement
Abstract
We investigate the fate of bottom quarks produced in heavy-ion collisions at RHIC. Examining both the direct capture of a charmed quark, and multi-step processes, where the B_c meson is formed in a sequence of quark capture and exchange reactions, we find: a) that a sufficiently high number of B_c's will be produced to generate a detectable tri-lepton signal, and b) that the production rate of B_c's is highly sensitive to the properties of the deconfined source. A flavor-independent potential model, which includes color screening effects, is used to study the propagation of a B_c in a quark-gluon fireball and to compare this behavior with that of J/Psi mesons.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.hep-ph/9905201,
title = {B_c Mesons as a signal of deconfinement},
author = {L. P. Fulcher and J. Rafelski and R. L. Thews},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-ph/9905201},
year = {2007}
}
Comments
6 pages including 3 figures, Presented at the APS Centennial meeting March 1999 Heavy Ion Minisymposium, to appear in proceedings, R. Seto, ed., World Scientific