Diffusion of charm quarks in jets in high-energy heavy-ion collisions

Abstract

Abstract The radial distribution of $$D^0$$ D0 mesons in jets probes the diffusion of charm quark relative to the jet axis and provides a new perspective to study the interaction mechanisms between heavy quarks and the medium in the nucleus-nucleus collisions. The in-medium parton propagations are described by a Monte Carlo transport model which uses the next-to-leading order (NLO) plus parton shower (PS) event generator SHERPA as input and includes elastic (collisional) and inelastic (radiative) interaction for heavy quarks as well as light partons. At low $$D^0$$ D0 meson $$p_T$$ pT , the radial distribution significantly shifts to larger radius indicating a strong diffusion effect which is consistent with the recent experimental data. We demonstrate that the angular deviation of charm quarks declines with $$p_T$$ pT and is very sensitive to the collisional more than radiative interaction at $$p_T<5$$ pT<5 GeV. As predictions, we present the $$D^0$$ D0 meson radial distribution in jets in p + p and $$0{-}10\%$$ 0-10% Au + Au collisions at $$\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200$$ sNN=200 GeV at the RHIC, and also estimate the nuclear modification factor of charm jet in central Au + Au collisions at 200 GeV at the RHIC and central Pb + Pb collisions at 5.02 TeV at the LHC.