English

How Much do Heavy Quarks Thermalize in a Heavy Ion Collision?

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2009-11-10 v3

Abstract

We investigate the thermalization of charm quarks in high energy heavy ion collisions. To this end, we calculate the diffusion coefficient in the perturbative Quark Gluon Plasma and relate it to collisional energy loss and momentum broadening. We then use these transport properties to formulate a Langevin model for the evolution of the heavy quark spectrum in the hot medium. The model is strictly valid in the non-relativistic limit and for all velocities γv<\alphas1/2\gamma v < \alphas^{-1/2} to leading logarithm in T/mDT/m_D. The corresponding Fokker-Planck equation can be solved analytically for a Bjorken expansion and the solution gives a simple estimate for the medium modifications of the heavy quark spectrum as a function of the diffusion coefficient. Finally we solve the Langevin equations numerically in a hydrodynamic simulation of the heavy ion reaction. The results of this simulation are the medium modifications of the charm spectrum RAAR_{AA} and the expected elliptic flow v2(pT)v_2(p_T) as a function of the diffusion coefficient.

Cite

@article{arxiv.hep-ph/0412346,
  title  = {How Much do Heavy Quarks Thermalize in a Heavy Ion Collision?},
  author = {Guy D. Moore and Derek Teaney},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-ph/0412346},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

34 pages, 9 figures. Inculdes a detailed comparison with Boltzmann simulations