Cold-nuclear-matter effcts on heavy-quark production in d+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN)=200 GeV
nucl-ex
/ Authors
A. Adare, S. Afanasiev, C. Aidala, N. N. Ajitanand, Y. Akiba, H. Al-Bataineh, J. Alexander, A. Angerami, K. Aoki, N. Apadula
and 373 more authors
Y. Aramaki, E. T. Atomssa, R. Averbeck, T. C. Awes, B. Azmoun, V. Babintsev, M. Bai, G. Baksay, L. Baksay, K. N. Barish, B. Bassalleck, A. T. Basye, S. Bathe, V. Baublis, C. Baumann, A. Bazilevsky, S. Belikov, R. Belmont, R. Bennett, A. Berdnikov, Y. Berdnikov, J. H. Bhom, D. S. Blau, J. S. Bok
/ Abstract
The PHENIX experiment has measured electrons and positrons at midrapidity from the decays of hadrons containing charm and bottom quarks produced in d+Au and p+p collisions at sqrt(s_NN)=200 GeV at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, in the transverse-momentum range 0.85 < pT < 8.5 GeV/c. In central d+Au collisions, the nuclear modification factor R_dA at 1.5 < pT < 5 GeV/c displays evidence of enhancement of these electrons, relative to those produced in p+p collisions, and shows that the mass-dependent Cronin enhancement observed at RHIC extends to the heavy-D-meson family. A comparison with the neutral-pion data suggests that the difference in cold-nuclear-matter effects on light- and heavy-flavor mesons could contribute to the observed differences between the pi0 and heavy-flavor-electron nuclear modification factor R_AA.