Flavoring the quark-gluon plasma with charm

Giorgio Torrieri, Jorge Noronha

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

We demonstrate that a Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) with a dilute admixture of heavy quarks has, in general, a lower speed of sound than a "pure" QGP without effects from heavy flavors. The change in the speed of sound is sensitive to the details of the theory, making the hydrodynamic response to "flavoring" a sensitive probe of the underlying microscopic dynamics. We suggest that this effect may be measured in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions by relating the event-by-event number of charm quarks to flow observables such as the average transverse momentum.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)477-482
Number of pages6
JournalPhysics Letters, Section B: Nuclear, Elementary Particle and High-Energy Physics
Volume690
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 5 2010
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Deconfinement
  • Heavy flavor
  • Non-perturbative QCD
  • Particle multiplicity
  • Polyakov loops
  • Quark-gluon plasma

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Nuclear and High Energy Physics

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