https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-024-05281-1
Regular Article
Empirical determination of the energy loss of heavy quarks in nuclear collisions at RHIC and LHC energies
1
Department of Physics, Pingla Thana Mahavidyalaya, Malligram, Paschim Medinipur, 721140, West Bengal, India
2
Department of Physics, Dinabandhu Mahavidyalaya, Bongaon, North 24 Parganas, 743235, West Bengal, India
3
Nuclear Physics Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Center, Trombay, Mumbai, 400085, Maharashtra, India
4
Homi Bhabha National Institute, Anushakti Nagar, Mumbai, 400094, Maharashtra, India
Received:
17
January
2024
Accepted:
9
May
2024
Published online:
14
June
2024
Heavy quarks produced in the heavy ion collisions loose energy while propagting in the hot partonic matter which finally fragment to heavy (D or B) mesons. The energy loss suffered by the heavy quarks is imprinted in the nuclear modification factor as a function of transverse momenta (
) of these heavy mesons. An alternate measure of in-medium energy loss comes through the effective shift in transverse momentum spectra of hadrons recorded in nucleus-nucleus collisions when it is compared to the same in proton-proton collisions. We start by parametrizing invariant momentum yields of heavy mesons in p+p collisions. The fit function from p+p collisions and measured nuclear modification factor in heavy ion collisions are then utilised to obtain the shift in the transeverse mass 
of heavy mesons produced at the RHIC and LHC experiments. The energy loss so obtained is found to scale with the transverse mass (
) of heavy mesons through a power law at different energies and centralities of collisions. We have also calculated using theoretical formalism, the total energy loss suffered by a charm quark in quark-gluon plasma produced in Pb + Pb collisions at the LHC energies. The evolution of the plasma is described by (2+1) dimensional longitudinal boost-invariant ideal hydrodynamics. It is found that the total energy loss of charm quarks scales with the transverse mass of charm quarks through a similar power law which supports our empirical analysis of energy loss.
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© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2024. Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
