Measurements of D^± and D^*± production in Au+Au collisions at √s_NN = 200 GeV from STAR

Charm quarks, owing to their large mass, are predominantly created through initial hard scatterings in relativistic heavy-ion collisions and thus are ideal probes to study the properties of Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) produced in these collisions. Thanks to high-precision vertex reconstruction provided by the Heavy Flavor Tracker detector, STAR experiment has been able to perform comprehensive measurements of D⁰ meson production. The results indicate that charm quarks lose energy and gain significant collectivity when traversing through the QGP medium. Measurements of D^± and D^*± production are complementary to D⁰ in studying the charm quark interaction with the medium. Also, potential hot medium effects can shorten the lifetime of D^*± and can lead to a modification of the measured D^*±/D⁰ yield ratio in heavy-ion collisions, compared to that in p+p collisions.

In this presentation, we report measurements of the production of D^± and D^*± mesons in Au+Au collisions at √s_NN = 200 GeV. The invariant yields are measured at mid-rapidity as a function of transverse momentum p_T in different centralities. The nuclear modification factors of D^± and the yield ratios of D^*±/D⁰ and D^±/D⁰ as a function of p_T and collision centrality are also presented and their physics implications are discussed.