Measurement of heavy flavor production and azimuthal anisotropy in small and large systems with ATLAS

Abstract

Heavy-flavor hadron production and collective motion in A+A collisions provide insight into the energy loss mechanism and transport properties of heavy quarks in the QGP. The same measurements in p+A collisions serve as an important baseline for understanding the observations in A+A collisions. For example, detailed studies of heavy-flavor hadron azimuthal anisotropy in p+A collisions may help to address whether the observed long-range “ridge” correlation arises from hard or semi-hard processes, or if it is the result of mechanisms unrelated to the initial hardness scale. These proceedings summarize heavy-flavor hadron production, via their semi-leptonic decay to muons in 2.76 TeV Pb+Pb and pp collisions, non-prompt J/ψ in 5.02 TeV Pb+Pb and pp collisions, and prompt D0 mesons in 8.16 TeV p+Pb collisions using ATLAS detector at the LHC. Azimuthal anisotropy of heavy-flavor hadrons is studied via their decay muons in 2.76 TeV Pb+Pb and 8.16 TeV p+Pb collisions, and via non-prompt J/ψ in 5.02 TeV Pb+Pb collisions. Strong suppression of heavy-flavor hadron production and azimuthal anisotropy are observed in Pb+Pb collisions, while significant azimuthal anisotropy of heavy-flavor muons is observed in p+Pb collisions, without evidence of the modification of their production rates.