Quenching and flow of charm and bottom quarks via semi-leptonic decay of D and B mesons in Pb+Pb collisions at the LHC*

Abstract

Heavy flavor particles provide important probes of the microscopic structure and thermodynamic properties of the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) produced in high-energy nucleus-nucleus collisions. We study the energy loss and flow of charm and bottom quarks inside the QGP via the nuclear modification factor (R AA) and elliptic flow coefficient (v2) of their decayed leptons in heavy-ion collisions at the LHC. The dynamical evolution of the QGP is performed using the (3+1)-dimensional viscous hydrodynamics model CLVisc; the evolution of heavy quarks inside the QGP is simulated with our improved Langevin model that takes into account both collisional and radiative energy loss of heavy quarks; the hadronization of heavy quarks is simulated via our hybrid coalescence-fragmentation model; and the semi-leptonic decay of D and B mesons is simulated via PYTHIA. By using the same spatial diffusion coefficient for charm and bottom quarks, we obtain smaller R AA and larger v2 of charm decayed leptons than bottom decayed leptons, indicating stronger energy loss of charm quarks than bottom quarks inside the QGP within our current model setup. Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI. Article funded by SCOAP3 and published under licence by Chinese Physical Society and the Institute of High Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Science and the Institute of Modern Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and IOP Publishing Ltd.