Search

We present results on pentaquark searches from nuclear collisions at RHIC with the STAR detector system. An intriguing peak has been observed in the invariant mass distribution of $pK^{+}+\overline{p}K^{-}$ from 18.6 Million d+Au collision events at $\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}} = 200\ {\rm GeV}$. The peak centers at a mass 1528 ± 2 ± 5 MeV/c2 and the FWHM ~15 MeV/c2 limited by detector responses. The statistical significance of the peak is 4.2σ. Such a state if confirmed is manifestly exotic and implies a family of isospin one states. A weak signal of less statistical significance (~3σ) has been observed in 5.6M Au+Au collision events at 62.4 GeV. Searches in 10.7M Au+Au collision events at 200 GeV yield no significant signal. The Au+Au results neither confirm nor rule out the d+Au observation as a possible state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A study of elliptic flow of open charm mesons, D0 and , using quark coalescence as a mechanism of hadronization of heavy quarks implemented in conjunction with A Multi-Phase Transport model has been presented. We have studied the transverse momentum dependence of the elliptic flow parameter at mid-rapidity ( < 1.0) for Au+Au collisions at (RHIC) and Pb+Pb collisions at TeV (LHC) for different values of partonic interaction cross-section and QCD coupling constant. We have compared our calculations with the experimentally measured data at the LHC energy. We have also studied the effect of shear viscosity on elliptic flow of open charm mesons within the transport model approach. Our study indicates that the elliptic flow of open charmed mesons is more sensitive to the viscous properties of the quark–gluon plasma medium as compared to light charged hadrons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]