Open and hidden heavy flavor measurements at RHIC

Abstract

Quarks of heavy flavors are useful tool to study quark-gluon plasma created in heavy-ion collisions. Due to their high mass and early production time, heavy quarks experience the entire evolution of the system created in these collisions. Open heavy flavor meson measurements are sensitive to the energy loss in the QGP, while quarkonia are sensitive to the temperature of the QGP as they dissociate because of Debye-like screening of color charges. This presentation is a summary of the latest heavy flavor studies performed at RHIC. Results from both STAR and PHENIX experiments are presented, compared to theoretical calculations and the implications discussed.