Impact of glasma on heavy flavor azimuthal correlations and spectra

We study the phenomenological impact of the preequilibrium glasma initial stage of heavy-ion collisions on heavy quark azimuthal correlations and spectra. Using our numerical solver, we simulate the transport of heavy quark test particles in an SU(3) glasma background field. The glasma field equations are formulated using classical real-time lattice gauge theory, and the heavy quark dynamics are described by classical transport equations numerically solved using the colored particle-in-cell method. For the first time, the effect of the glasma stage on the azimuthal correlations of <a:math xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><a:mrow><a:mi>c</a:mi><a:mover accent="true"><a:mrow><a:mi>c</a:mi></a:mrow><a:mrow><a:mo stretchy="false">¯</a:mo></a:mrow></a:mover></a:mrow></a:math> and <e:math xmlns:e="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><e:mi>b</e:mi><e:mover accent="true"><e:mi>b</e:mi><e:mo stretchy="false">¯</e:mo></e:mover></e:math> pairs is studied. The resulting azimuthal width <i:math xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><i:msub><i:mi>σ</i:mi><i:mrow><i:mi mathvariant="normal">Δ</i:mi><i:mi>ϕ</i:mi></i:mrow></i:msub></i:math> exhibits a large and quick decorrelation due to the strong glasma fields. Further, we evaluate how the <l:math xmlns:l="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><l:msub><l:mi>p</l:mi><l:mi>T</l:mi></l:msub></l:math>-broadening in the glasma affects heavy quark <n:math xmlns:n="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><n:msub><n:mi>p</n:mi><n:mi>T</n:mi></n:msub></n:math>-spectra, which are initialized according to the Fixed-Order Next-to-Leading Logarithm (FONLL) heavy quark production calculation. The nuclear modification factor <p:math xmlns:p="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><p:msub><p:mi>R</p:mi><p:mrow><p:mi>A</p:mi><p:mi>A</p:mi></p:mrow></p:msub></p:math> is extracted for <r:math xmlns:r="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><r:mi>c</r:mi></r:math> and <t:math xmlns:t="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><t:mi>b</t:mi></t:math> quarks in the glasma and additional nuclear PDF effects accounting for gluon shadowing are included.