Estimates of dilepton spectra from open charm and bottom decays

Abstract

The spectra of lepton pairs from correlated open charm and bottom decays in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions are calculated. Our approach includes energy loss effects of the fast heavy quarks in deconfined matter which are determined by temperature and density of the expanding parton medium. We find a noticeable suppression of the initial transverse momentum spectrum of heavy quarks due to the energy loss within the central rapidity covered by the PHENIX detector system. As a result the dilepton yields from correlated decays of heavy quarks are in the same order of magnitude as the Drell-Yan signal.

Contribution to the Proceedings of ''RHIC'97 Summer Study'' July 7 - 16, 1997, Brookhaven National Lab