Heavy-Flavor Collectivity - Light-Flavor Thermalization at RHIC

Abstract

Flow measurements of multi-strange baryons from Au + Au collisions at RHIC energies demonstrate that collectivity develops before hadronization, among partons. To pin down the partonic EOS of matter produced at RHIC, the status of thermalization in such collisions has to be addressed. We propose to measure collective flow of heavy-flavor quarks, e.g. charm quarks, as an indicator of thermalization of light flavors ($u,d,s$). The completion of the time of flight barrel and the proposed upgrade with a $\mu$Vertex detector for heavy-flavor identification in STAR are well suited for achieving these goals.