Eur. Phys. J. C (2009) 61: 659-664
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-009-0931-4

Regular Article - Experimental Physics

Heavy quark results from STAR

Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA

^* e-mail: xdong@lbl.gov

Received: 12 September 2008
Revised: 3 December 2008
Published online: 21 February 2009

Abstract

I report the most recent measurements on open heavy flavor production at RHIC on behalf of the STAR collaboration. The total charm production cross section in midrapidity at RHIC energy is found to approximately scale by number of binary collisions in d + Au, Cu + Cu and Au + Au collisions. The nuclear modification factor of non-photonic electrons is strongly suppressed in central Au + Au collisions, suggesting substantial heavy quark energy loss at RHIC. The bottom decay contribution to non-photonic electrons was studied via the e–h and e–D ⁰ azimuthal angular correlations. The bottom contribution is found to be important at p _T >5 GeV/c, and is consistent with the FONLL calculation within uncertainties. Charm production through gluon jet splitting was measured by studying the D ^*± contents in the fully reconstructed jets in p+p collisions. This rate is consistent with pQCD evaluation of gluon splitting into a pair of charm quarks and subsequent hadronization.