Abstract
We report the first measurement of charmed-hadron () production via the hadronic decay channel () in collisions at with the STAR experiment. The charm production cross section per nucleon-nucleon collision at midrapidity scales with the number of binary collisions, , from to central collisions. The meson yields in central collisions are strongly suppressed compared to those in scaled by , for transverse momenta , demonstrating significant energy loss of charm quarks in the hot and dense medium. An enhancement at intermediate is also observed. Model calculations including strong charm-medium interactions and coalescence hadronization describe our measurements.
- Received 25 April 2014
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.113.142301
© 2014 American Physical Society