Statistical hadronization of charm in heavy ion collisions

Abstract

Production of open and hidden charm hadrons in heavy ion collisions is considered within the statistical coalescence model (SCM). Charmed quark-antiquark pairs are assumed to be created at the initial stage of the reaction in hard parton collisions. The number of these pairs is conserved during the evolution of the system. At hadronization, the charmed (anti)quarks are distributed among open and hidden charm hadrons in accordance with laws of statistical mechanics. Important special cases: a system with a small number of charmed quark-antiquark pairs and charm hadronization in a subsystem of the whole system are considered. The model calculations are compared with the preliminary PHENIX data for J/psi production at RHIC. Possible influence of the in-nuclear modification of the parton distribution functions (shadowing) on the SCM results is studied.