Abstract The large values and constituent-quark-number scaling of the elliptic flow of low- D mesons imply that charm quarks, initially produced through hard processes, might be partially thermalized through strong interactions with quark-gluon plasma (QGP) in high-energy heavy-ion collisions. To quantify the degree of thermalization of low- charm quarks, we compare the meson spectra and elliptic flow from a hydrodynamic model to experimental data as well as transport model simulations. We use an effective charm chemical potential at the freeze-out temperature to account for the initial charm quark production from hard processes and assume that they are thermalized in the local comoving frame of the medium before freeze-out. mesons are sampled statistically from the freeze-out hyper-surface of the expanding QGP as described by the event-by-event (3+1)D viscous hydrodynamic model CLVisc. Both the hydrodynamic and transport models can describe the elliptic flow of mesons at GeV/ c as measured in Au+Au collisions at GeV. Though the experimental data on spectra are consistent with the hydrodynamic result at small GeV/ c , they deviate from the hydrodynamic model at high transverse momentum, GeV/ c . The diffusion and parton energy loss mechanisms in the transport model can describe the measured spectra reasonably well within the theoretical uncertainty. Our comparative study indicates that charm quarks only approach local thermal equilibrium at small , even though they acquire sizable elliptic flow comparable to light-quark hadrons at both small and intermediate .
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Thermal-model-based characterization of heavy-ion-collision systems at chemical freeze-out
We investigate the chemical freeze-out in heavy-ion collisions (HICs) and the impact of the hadronic spectrum on thermal model analyses [1, 2]. Detailed knowledge of the hadronic spectrum is still an open question, which has phenomenological consequences on the study of HICs. By varying the number of resonances included in Hadron Resonance Gas (HRG) Model calculations, we can shed light on which particles may be produced. Furthermore, we study the influence of the number of states on the so-called two flavor freezeout scenario, in which strange and light particles can freeze-out separately. We consider results for the chemical freeze-out parameters obtained from thermal model fits and from calculating net-particle fluctuations. We will show the effect of using one global temperature to fit all particles and alternatively, allowing particles with and without strange quarks to freeze-out separately.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1654219
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10336541
- Editor(s):
- David, G.; Garg, P.; Kalweit, A.; Mukherjee, S.; Ullrich, T.; Xu, Z.; Yoo, I.-K.
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- EPJ Web of Conferences
- Volume:
- 259
- ISSN:
- 2100-014X
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 11010
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/202225911010
