Nuclear modification factor of nonphotonic electrons in heavy-ion collisions, and the heavy-flavor baryon-to-meson ratio

作者：Oh Yongseok^*; Ko Che Ming

来源：Physical Review C, 2009, 79(6): 067902.

DOI：10.1103/PhysRevC.79.067902

The nuclear modification factor R-AA of nonphotonic electrons in Au + Au collisions at root(NN)-N-S = 200 GeV is studied by considering the decays of heavy-flavor hadrons produced in a quark coalescence model. Although an enhanced Lambda(c)/D-0 ratio is predicted by the coalescence model, it is peaked at small transverse momenta (similar to 2 GeV) due to the large difference between heavy and light quark masses. As a result, the enhanced Lambda(c)/D-0 ratio, which is expected to suppress the electron R-AA as the branching ratio of Lambda(c) decay into electrons is smaller than that of D-0, does not lead to additional suppression of the electron R-AA at large transverse momenta (>= 5 GeV), where the suppression is mainly due to heavy quark energy loss in produced quark-gluon plasma. Also, the enhanced Lambda(b)/(B) over bar (0) ratio predicted by the coalescence model has even smaller effect on the nonphotonic electron R-AA as bottom baryons and mesons have similar branching ratios for semileptonic decays into electrons.

• 出版日期2009-6