English

Flavoring the Quark-Gluon Plasma with Charm

Nuclear Theory 2014-11-20 v2 High Energy Physics - Experiment High Energy Physics - Phenomenology Nuclear Experiment

Abstract

We demonstrate that a Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) with a dilute admixture of heavy quarks has, in general, a lower speed of sound than a "pure" QGP without effects from heavy flavors. The change in the speed of sound is sensitive to the details of the theory, making the hydrodynamic response to "flavoring" a sensitive probe of the underlying microscopic dynamics. We suggest that this effect may be measured in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions by relating the event-by-event number of charm quarks to flow observables such as the average transverse momentum.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1004.0237,
  title  = {Flavoring the Quark-Gluon Plasma with Charm},
  author = {Giorgio Torrieri and Jorge Noronha},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1004.0237},
  year   = {2014}
}

Comments

Accepted for publication, Phys.Lett.B Additional discussion, main arguments and conclusions unchanged

R2 v1 2026-06-21T15:05:43.095Z