Open heavy flavor production at RHIC

The study of heavy flavor production in relativistic heavy ion collisions is an extreme experimental challenge but provides important information on the properties of the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) created in Au+Au collisions at RHIC. Heavy-quarks are believed to be produced in the initial stages of the collision, and are essential on the understanding of parton energy loss in the dense medium created in such environment. Moreover, heavy-quarks can help to investigate fundamental properties of QCD in elementary p+p collisions. In this work we review recent results on heavy flavor production and their interaction with the hot and dense medium at RHIC.Comment: Quark Matter 2006 proceedings, 8 pages, 5 figure

SQM 2006: Theory Summary and Perspectives

In this write-up of my SQM 2006 Theory Summary talk I focus on a selection of key contributions which I consider to have a large impact on the current status of the field of strangeness physics or which may have the potential to significantly advance strangeness -- or in general flavor physics -- in the near future.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures, SQM 2006 proceedings. Revised version containing two modifications to the transport theory sectio

Overview of charm production at RHIC

In this presentation, I discussed a) the charm total cross-section and its comparisons to measurements at other beam energies and pQCD calculations; b) the semileptonic decay of charmed hadrons and the sensitivity of non-photonic leptons to charm quark collective flow and freeze-out; c) semileptonic decayed electron spectrum at high transverse momentum, its comparison to FONLL in p+p and d+Au collisions, and heavy-quark energy loss in Au+Au collisions.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, overview talk at SQM2006: Strangeness in Quark Matter Los Angeles, CA, Mar. 26-31, 2006; minor text changes and references adde

Jet Quenching in Heavy Ion Collisions

This review article was prepared for the Landolt-Boernstein volume on Relativisitc Heavy Ion Physics.Comment: Review articel accepted for publication in the Landolt-Boernstein Handbook of Physics, ed. R. Stock. 41 pages LaTex, 7 eps-figure

RHIC physics overview

The results from data taken during the last several years at the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC) will be reviewed in the paper. Several selected topics that further our understanding of constituent quark scaling, jet quenching and color screening effect of heavy quarkonia in the hot dense medium will be presented. Detector upgrades will further probe the properties of Quark Gluon Plasma. Future measurements with upgraded detectors will be presented. The discovery perspectives from future measurements will also be discussed.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, invited review article, published by Frontier of Physics in Chin

Mach Cones in Quark Gluon Plasma

The experimental azimuthal dihadron distributions at RHIC show a double peak structure in the away side ($\Delta \phi = \pi \pm 1.2$ rad.) for intermediate $p_t$ particles. A variety of models have appeared trying to describe this modification. We will review most of them, with special emphasis in the Conical Flow scenario in which the observed shape is a consequence of the emission of sound by a supersonic high momentum particle propagating in the Quark Gluon Plasma.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, Invited plenary talk given at the 19th International Conference on Ultrarelativistic Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions: Quark Matter 2006 (QM 2006), Shanghai, China, 14-20 Nov 200