Charmed hadron production at low transverse momentum in Au+Au collisions at RHIC

Abstract

We report measurements of charmed hadron production from hadronic ($D^{0}\rightarrow K\pi$) and semileptonic ($\mu$ and $e$) decays in 200 GeV Au+Au collisions at RHIC. Analysis of the spectra indicates that charmed hadrons have a different radial flow pattern from light or multi-strange hadrons. Charm cross sections at mid-rapidity are extracted by combining the three independent measurements, covering the transverse momentum range that contributes to $\sim$90% of the integrated cross section. The cross sections scale with number of binary collisions of the initial nucleons, a signature of charm production exclusively at the initial impact of colliding heavy ions. The implications for charm quark interaction and thermalization in the strongly interacting matter are discussed.