Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: We study the phenomenological impact of the preequilibrium glasma initial stage of heavy-ion collisions on heavy quark azimuthal correlations and spectra. Using our numerical solver, we simulate the transport of heavy quark test particles in an SU(3) glasma background field. The glasma field equations are formulated using classical real-time lattice gauge theory, and the heavy quark dynamics are described by classical transport equations numerically solved using the colored particle-in-cell method. For the first time, the effect of the glasma stage on the azimuthal correlations of c c ¯ and b b ¯ pairs is studied. The resulting azimuthal width σ Δ ϕ exhibits a large and quick decorrelation due to the strong glasma fields. Further, we evaluate how the p T -broadening in the glasma affects heavy quark p T -spectra, which are initialized according to the Fixed-Order Next-to-Leading Logarithm (FONLL) heavy quark production calculation. The nuclear modification factor R A A is extracted for c and b quarks in the glasma and additional nuclear PDF effects accounting for gluon shadowing are included.
Language: English
Subfield: Nuclear and High Energy Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Awards: G1073255417, G1598582048, Nonperturbative properties of evolving gluonic plasmas, G231133531, Simulating the earliest stages of heavy-ion collisions, Center of Excellence in Quark Matter, G3362070546, G435705506, G6753714465, Center of Excellence in Quark Matter, G7445320423, QCD Matter in Extreme Conditions
OpenAlex ID: W4409918096