Speaker
Description
Heavy flavor production is an ideal tool to study the properties of
the QCD medium created at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC)
and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The kinematic coverage and
production mechanisms of the heavy flavor are different between RHIC
and LHC. The PHENIX experiment has a comprehensive physics program
which studies open heavy flavor and quarkonium production in
relativistic heavy-ion collisions. It is critical to measure both open
heavy flavor and quarkonium in different collision systems to
disentangle cold (initial state) and hot nuclear medium (final)
effects. The heavy quarks (charm and beauty) are predominantly
produced in the early stage of the collisions via hard partonic
scattering processes. Therefore, they experience the full evolution of
the nuclear medium.
The recent PHENIX results on heavy flavor and quarkonium production
measured in p+p, p+Al, p+Au, He+Au, and Au+Au collisions as a function
of centrality, rapidity, and transverse momentum will be presented,
and interpretation of the results with respect to the current
theoretical understanding will be discussed in this talk.
