Heavy flavor production in p+p and d+Au collisions at sqrt(sNN) = 200 GeV from single leptons over a wide kinematic range

Abstract

The PHENIX experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider has measured single electrons at midrapidity and single muons at forward and backward rapidities (1.2<|y|< 2.2) for p+p and d+Au collisions at sqrt(sNN)=200 GeV. The inclusive lepton spectra exhibit excesses over light hadron sources. The excesses are attributed to semileptonic decays of charm and bottom hadrons and compared to the perturbative QCD predictions. The NLO pQCD calculation underpredicts the excess lepton production in {\it p+p} collisions. The excess lepton production in {\it d+Au} collisions scales with $N_{coll}$ at midrapidity, and shows suppression/enhancement relative to the same scaling in d/Au-going direction within large uncertainties.