Abstract. Heavy quarks are suitable probes to study the properties of Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP), a strongly interacting medium, which can be created in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). Non-photonic electrons (NPE) that originate from semileptonic decays of D and B mesons can serve as a good proxy for heavy flavor quarks. Nuclear modification factor R AA of NPE is measured in heavy-ion collisions, which is sensitive to the effect of QGP on heavy quarks. Measurements of NPE R AA in Au+Au collisions at √ s NN = 200 GeV reveal that NPE production is strongly suppressed. In year 2012 STAR collected data from U+U collisions at √ s NN = 193 GeV. In most central collisions higher energy density can be achieved in comparison to collisions of gold nuclei. In this proceedings the preliminary results on NPE in 0-5% most central U+U collisions at a transverse momentum range 1.2 < p T < 6 GeV/c are presented. The nuclear modification factor in U+U collisions is compared to that in Au+Au collisions and theoretical models.
IntroductionA new state of QCD matter is created during ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions at RHIC. One of the suitable probes to study the hot and dense medium, Quark-Gluon Plasma, are heavy quarks charm (c) and bottom (b). Due to their large masses, heavy quarks can be created only in the scatterings with large momenutm transfers which happen during the early stages of heavy-ion collisions before creation of QGP. Thus, their initial production is not affected by this medium, while the final distribution of particles composed of these heavy quarks is modified by the interaction between heavy quarks and QGP and other possible nuclear matter effects.To quanitfy the effects of nuclear matter vs. the production in p+p collisions we commonly use the nuclear modification factor, R AA . R AA is defined as the ratio of particle production in heavy-ion collisions to particle production in proton-proton collisions scaled by the mean number of binary collisions obtained from Glauber model [1]:a