Recent physics results from the PHENIX experiment with the silicon-vertex detectors

The PHENIX experiment at RHIC has studied heavy flavor production through the semi-leptonic and J/ψ decay channels using silicon-vertex detectors covering particles going to central and forward rapidities. These detectors provide precise measurement of the event vertex as well as displacement of the decay muon trajectories from the reconstructed event vertex. This talk will discuss the latest results including charm and bottom yields in p+p collisions at √s_NN=200 GeV, their nuclear modifications in Au+Au collisions, azimuthal anisotropies as well as how these studies contribute to our understanding of initial state effects and energy loss mechanism for heavy quarks in the quark-gluon plasma at RHIC.