D-Dbar Correlations as a sensitive probe for thermalization in high-energy nuclear collisions

Zhu, X.; Bleicher, M.; Huang, S. L.; Schweda, K.; Stoecker, H.; Xu, N.; Zhuang, P.

D-Dbar Correlations as a sensitive probe for thermalization in high-energy nuclear collisions

Authors

Description

We propose to measure azimuthal correlations of heavy-flavor hadrons to address the status of thermalization at the partonic stage of light quarks and gluons in high-energy nuclear collisions. In particular, we show that hadronic interactions at the late stage cannot significantly disturb the initial back-to-back azimuthal correlations of DDbar pairs. Thus, a decrease or the complete absence of these initial correlations does indicate frequent interactions of heavy-flavor quarks and also light partons in the partonic stage, which are essential for the early thermalization of light partons.
5 pages, 4 figures. Version accepted for publication in Phys.Lett.B