| Abstract: | Charmed hadrons are interesting observables in heavy ion collisions. They are becoming more accessible to experimental scrutiny
at RHIC energies due to the increased production cross-section of charm with the larger centre-of-mass energy available at
RHIC compared to SPS. One source of interest in charm production is due to the fact that gluon fusion dominates the charm
production cross-section at high energy. Hence, a measurement of charm hadrons is directly sensitive to the gluon distributions
of the colliding particles. In addition, any measurement of production at RHIC, and more importantly any observed suppression,
must be compared to the overall production of pairs. A systematic study of charmed hadrons in all collision systems available
at RHIC is therefore an invaluable experimental tool in the characterization of the matter produced at RHIC. In particular,
d + Au collisions are a necessary step for the comparison of any possible modification of charm production in Au + Au collisions.
We present preliminary results on D meson production from d + Au collisions in STAR at = 200 .
Arrival of the final proofs: 26 July 2005
PACS:
13.20.Fc, 13.25.Ft, 25.75.-q, 24.85. + p |
