Heavy flavor measurements at the STAR experiment

Abstract

In ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions at RHIC, a new state of nuclear matter with extreme properties is produced — the strongly interacting quark-gluon plasma. Heavy quarks, predominantly produced at early stages of collisions owing to their large masses, provide an exceptional probe for exploring the hot and dense medium created in such collisions. The Heavy Flavor Tracker and Muon Telescope Detector have been fully operational since 2014 and have significantly improved STAR’s capabilities in measuring both open and hidden heavy flavor hadrons in heavy-ion collisions. We present an overview of recent heavy flavor results obtained at the STAR experiment.