Charm elliptic flow from quark coalescence dynamics

Abstract

From covariant transport theory, a significant ~10% light quark elliptic flow at RHIC implies an elliptic flow of similar magnitude for charm quarks, at moderately large pT > 2.5 - 3 GeV. At lower transverse momenta, charm quark elliptic flow reduces progressively, reminiscent of the mass ordering pattern in ideal hydrodynamics. From the quark flows we predict the elliptic flow of D mesons at RHIC via quark coalescence. The large parton opacities needed to generate the light quark flow also lead to substantial ~40-50% secondary charm production.