Contribution of coherent electron production to measurements of heavy-flavor decayed electrons in heavy-ion collisions

Heavy quarks, produced at early stages of heavy-ion collisions, are an excellent probe of the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) also created in these collisions. Electrons from open heavy-flavor hadron decays (HFE) are good proxies for heavy quarks, and have been measured extensively in the last two decades...

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Published inarXiv.org
Main Authors Zhang, Shenghui, Ma, Rongrong, Ji, Yuanjing, Tang, Zebo, Yang, Qian, Zhang, Yifei, Zha, Wangwei
Format Paper
LanguageEnglish
Published Ithaca Cornell University Library, arXiv.org 15.04.2024
Subjects
Coherence
Collision dynamics
Electrons
Flavor (particle physics)
Heavy ions
Ionic collisions
Pair production
Photons
Quark-gluon plasma
Quarks
Transverse momentum
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Summary:Heavy quarks, produced at early stages of heavy-ion collisions, are an excellent probe of the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) also created in these collisions. Electrons from open heavy-flavor hadron decays (HFE) are good proxies for heavy quarks, and have been measured extensively in the last two decades to study QGP properties. These measurements are traditionally carried out by subtracting all known background sources from the inclusive electron sample. More recently, a significant enhancement of \(e^+e^-\) pair production at very low transverse momenta was observed in peripheral heavy-ion collisions. The production characteristics is consistent with coherent photon-photon interactions, which should also constitute a background source to the HFE measurements. In this article, we provide theoretical predictions for the contribution of coherent electron production to HFE as a function of transverse momentum, centrality and collision energy in Au+Au and Pb+Pb collisions.
ISSN:2331-8422