$B_c$ enhancement with non-thermalized bottom quarks in nuclear collisions at Large Hadron Collider

Abstract

We study $B_c$ production in high-energy nuclear collisions in a transport approach with dissociation and regeneration at finite temperatures. Due to the rare production in p+p collisions and the strong combination of uncorrelated $c$ and $\bar b$ quarks in the quark-gluon plasma, the $B_c$ yield is significantly enhanced in the nuclear collisions at the Large Hadron Collider. Moreover, the centrality and momentum-dependent yield of $B_c$ sensitively reflect the thermalization degree of bottom quarks. And the newly observed experimental data favors a far from the thermal bottom quark distribution in the quark-gluon plasma.