1 research outputs found
B_c Meson Production in Nuclear Collisions at RHIC
We study quantitatively the formation and evolution of B_c bound states in a
space-time domain of deconfined quarks and gluons (quark-gluon plasma, QGP). At
the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) one expects for the first time that
typical central collisions will result in multiple pairs of heavy (in this case
charmed) quarks. This provides a new mechanism for the formation of heavy
quarkonia which depends on the properties of the deconfined region. We find
typical enhancements of about 500 fold for the B_c production yields over
expectations from the elementary coherent hadronic B_c-meson production
scenario. The final population of bound states may serve as a probe of the
plasma phase parameters.Comment: 9 Pages, 11 Postscript Figure