Ongoing high-energy collider experiments with heavy flavours as
probes at the LHC, CERN, and RHIC, BNL, involving p-p, p(d)-A and
A-A collisions reveal a wealth of information about the medium
produced in nucleus-nucleus collisions. The fixed target high
luminosity experiment CBM, coming up at the FAIR facility in
GSI,
will shed light on the aspects of baryon rich nuclear
matter.
By virtue of their large masses (Mc~1.5 GeV, Mb~5 GeV), heavy
quark-antiquark
pairs are produced at the very early stage of the high energy
heavy-ion collisions with short formation time (Δt > 1/2M). As a
consequence, heavy quarks witness the entire space-time evolution
of the system and can act as an effective probe of the created
matter. Furthermore, the thermalization time of heavy quarks is
delayed relative to the light partons of the bulk medium by a
factor of order ∼M/T, which renders it comparable to the lifetime
of the QGP fireballs. Thus, heavy flavour particles are not
expected to fully thermalize and therefore preserve a memory of
their interaction history, which can serve as a gauge of their
interaction strength with the medium. Being a non-equilibrium probe
and produced early, they can also act as an excellent probe of
the initial stage of heavy-ion collisions, i.e., initial
electromagnetic field, vorticity, and pre-thermal phase.
The first Heavy Flavour meet was held at IIT Bombay in 2013.
The second meet of this series was held at the Saha Institute of
Nuclear Physics (SINP), Kolkata, in 2016, and more details can be
found
here. The Third meet of this series was held at IIT Indore
in 2019, and more details can be found
here. The purpose of this
“Heavy Flavour Meet” series is to bring together the leading
experts comprising experimentalists and theoreticians in this
field across the globe to stimulate discussion on recent
experimental results, theoretical developments, and future
directions in this field to benefit the young researchers working
in this field.