Eur. Phys. J. C (2007) 49: 355-358
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-006-0092-7

Regular Article – Experimental Physics

Open charm measurements at STAR

Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY, 11973, USA

^* e-mail: thomas.ullrich@bnl.gov

Received: 9 August 2006
Published online: 6 December 2006

Abstract

We report on the measurements of D⁰ meson production via direct reconstruction through the hadronic decay channel D⁰→Kπ in minimum bias d+Au and Au+Au collisions at with p_T up to ∼3 GeV/c. We derive the charm production total cross-section per nucleon–nucleon collision from a combination of three measurements: the D⁰ meson spectra, the non-photonic electron spectra from charm semi-leptonic decays obtained in p+p, d+Au, and Au+Au collisions, and the charm-decayed single muon (prompt muon) spectra at low p_T in Au+Au collisions. The cross-section is found to follow binary scaling, which is a signature of charm production exclusively at the initial impact. The implications of charm quark energy-loss and thermalization in the strongly interacting matter are discussed.