Correlations of electrons from heavy flavor decay with hadrons in Au+Au and p+p collisions

Measurements of electrons from the decay of open-heavy-avor mesons have shown that the yields are suppressed in Au+Au collisions compared to expectations from binary-scaled p+p collisions. These measurements indicate that charm and bottom quarks interact with the hot-dense matter produced in heavy-ion collisions much more than expected. Here we extend these studies to two-particle correlations where one particle is an electron from the decay of a heavy-avor meson and the other is a charged hadron from either the decay of the heavy meson or from jet fragmentation. These measurements provide more detailed information about the interactions between heavy quarks and the matter, such as whether the modication of the away-side-jet shape seen in hadron-hadron correlations is present when the trigger particle is from heavy-meson decay and whether the overall level of away-side-jet suppression is consistent. We statistically subtract correlations of electrons arising from background sources from the inclusive electron-hadron correlations and obtain two-particle azimuthal correlations at sNN =200 GeV between electrons from heavy-avor decay with charged hadrons in p+p and also rst results in Au+Au collisions. We nd the away-side-jet shape and yield to be modied in Au+Au collisions compared to p+p collisions.