Speaker
Dr
Andrew Adare
(University of Colorado)
Description
Quantitative knowledge of heavy quark momentum distributions in the hot nuclear medium created by ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions is of high value in quantitatively understanding the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) phase of nuclear matter. In particular, the modification of heavy-quark momentum distributions from nuclear collisions as compared to smaller collision environments (such as p+p) provides important clues about the density of color charges and their coupling strength, which is of fundamental importance in QCD. This poster describes a procedure for statistical inference of D and B meson $p_{T}$ yields from nonphotonic electrons (NPEs). The relative yield of D and B mesons is sensitive to the electron $p_{T}$ and displaced-vertex distributions because of their mass and lifetime difference. The dataset is composed of an invariant NPE yield vs. $p_{T}$ as well as the electron displaced-vertex information, both measured near midrapidity. The yield of $D,B$ and subsequent decay ($D\to e$ and $B\to e$) is modeled using a monte carlo event generator (e.g. PYTHIA). Using real data and the generative model as inputs, the yield of parent mesons is inferred in a rigorous Bayesian framework using Markov Chain Monte Carlo sampling. The result is a full posterior distribution of D and B meson yields over a large $p_{T}$ range.
Primary author
Dr
Andrew Adare
(University of Colorado)
