Type

Text

Type

Dissertation

Advisor

Drees, Axel , Verbaarschot, Jacobus | Kistenev, Edouard | Goldhaber, Alfred | Takai, Helio.

Date

2011-12-01

Keywords

bottom, charm, heavy flavor, non-photonic, semi-leptonic, single electrons | Physics

Department

Department of Physics

Language

en_US

Source

This work is sponsored by the Stony Brook University Graduate School in compliance with the requirements for completion of degree.

Identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/11401/71436

Publisher

The Graduate School, Stony Brook University: Stony Brook, NY.

Format

application/pdf

Abstract

The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at BNL offers a unique opportunity in that it is capable of colliding protons and nuclei, including asymmetric collisions of different species. Open heavy quarks, that is charm or bottom not forming bound $c\bar{c}$ or $b\bar{b}$ pairs are important probes of the Quark Gluon Plasma at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at BNL. They are formed at the initial collision of the nuclei and thus any effect to their transverse momentum spectra or azimuthal distribution can only come from their interaction with the matter created in the collision. One of the most powerful techniques of measuring these effects is to divide AuAu data by appropriately scaled pp data. This work focuses on providing the best possible pp reference both in scope and precision. Transverse momentum ($p_{T}$) spectra of electrons from semileptonic weak decays of heavy flavor mesons in the range of $0.3 < p_{T} < 15.0 GeV/c$ have been measured at mid-rapidity $(|y| < 0.35)$ beyond the previous published range of $p_{T} < 9.0 GeV/c$. This is done using a new technique exploiting the observed characteristics of energy deposition in the PHENIX electromagnetic calorimeters. We present this technique as well as the final measurement compared to FONLL theory predictions of open charm and bottom cross section,190 pages

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