Thermal Open Charm Signals Versus Hard Initial Yields in ultrarelativistic Heavy-Ion Collisions

Abstract.

Exploiting a unique set of parton distribution functions we estimate hard processes for open charm, dilepton and mini-jet production. Assuming rapid thermalization within the mini-jet plasma we follow the evolution (expansion and chemical equilibration) of the parton matter and calculate the energy loss of charm quarks in this environment. A substantial part of charm is espected to thermalize. We try to estimate the thermalized open charm component in the final hadron spectra.