Speaker
Description
Charm quarks possess large masses, and thus can serve as penetrating probes to study the intrinsic properties of the hot medium created in heavy-ion collisions. However, Cold Nuclear Matter (CNM) effects, such as the change in the parton distribution function between a free nucleon and a nucleus, also affect the charm quark production in nuclear collisions with respect to p+p collisions. These effects can be measured in small systems such as p+A and d+A collisions, where only the CNM effects are present. Furthermore, a sizable azimuthal anisotropy ($v_2$) has been observed in both nucleus-nucleus collisions and small-system collisions of high multiplicities. To better understand the origin of the flow-like signal in small-system collisions, it is important to study charm quark azimuthal anisotropy in these systems.
In this presentation, we will report on the first measurements of $\text{D}^{0}$ production in p+Au collisions, and the $\text{D}^{0}$ transverse momentum spectrum and $v_2$ with the Heavy Flavor Tracker in d+Au collisions, all at $\sqrt{s_{\text{NN}}}=200$ GeV. The nuclear modification factors of $\text{D}^{0}$ meson will be extracted to quantify the CNM effects, and a comparison will be made to those of electrons from open heavy flavor hadron decays in p+Au collisions. Different cuts on the pseudo-rapidity gap between $\text{D}^{0}$ candidates and tracks used for event plane reconstruction, as well as different techniques, such as event plane and two-particle correlation methods, will be explored to help understand different physics mechanisms contributing to the azimuthal anisotropy.
| Content type | Experiment |
|---|---|
| Collaboration | STAR |
| Centralised submission by Collaboration | Presenter name already specified |
