Abstracts for 2010 APS April Meeting (Feb. 13-17, 2010, Washington DC)

• Jonathan Bouchet

Title: Performance studies of the Silicon Detectors in STAR towards microvertexing of rare decays

Abstract: Heavy quarks production ($b$ and $c$) as well as their elliptic flow can be used as a probe of the thermalization of the medium created in heavy ions collisions. Direct topological reconstruction of charmed and bottom decays is then needed to obtain this precise measurement. To achieve this goal the silicon detectors of the STAR experiment are explored. These detectors, a Silicon Drift (SVT) 3-layer detector[1] and a Silicon Strip one-layer detector[2] provide tracking very near to the beam axis and allow us to search for heavy flavour with microvertexing methods. $D^{0}$ meson reconstruction including the silicon detectors in the tracking algorithm will be presented for the Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 200 GeV, and physics opportunities will be discussed.

[1]R. Bellwied et al., Nucl. Inst. Methods A499 (2003) 640.

[2]L. Arnold et al., Nucl. Inst. and Methods A499 (2003) 652.

• Matt Cervantes

Title: Upsilon + Hadron correlations at the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC)

Abstract: STAR has the capability to reconstruct the heavy quarkonium states of both the J/Psi and Upsilon particles produced by the collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC).  The systematics of prompt production of heavy quarkonium is not fully described by current models, e.g. the Color Singlet Model (CSM) and the Color Octect Model.  Hadronic activity directly around the heavy quarkonium has been proposed [1] as an experimental observable to measure the radiation emitted off the coloured heavy quark pair during production.  Possible insight into the prompt production mechanism of heavy quarkonium can be obtained from this measured activity.  Using STAR data from dAu collisions at sqrt(s_NN)= 200 GeV, the high S/B ratio found in Upsilon reconstruction [2] can enable us to perform an analysis of Upsilon + Hadron correlations.  We will present our initial investigation of such an analysis.

[1] Kraan, A. C., arXiv:0807.3123.

[2] Liu, H., STAR Collaboration, arXiv:0907.4538.