We calculate open heavy-flavor (HF) production in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=62.4$ GeV utilizing a nonperturbative transport approach as previously applied in nuclear collisions at top Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and Large Hadron Collider (LHC) energies. The effects of hot QCD matter are treated in a strong-coupling framework, by implementing heavy-quark diffusion, hadronization, and heavy-flavor meson diffusion within a hydrodynamic background evolution. Since in our approach the heavy-flavor coupling to the medium is strongest in the pseudocritical region (including the effects of resonance recombination), it is of interest to test its consequences at lower collision energies where the sensitivity to this region should be enhanced relative to the initially hotter fireball temperatures reached at top RHIC and LHC energies. We find that the suppression and flow pattern of the nonphotonic electrons from heavy-flavor decays at 62.4 GeV emerges from an intricate interplay of thermalization and initial-state effects, in particular a Cronin enhancement which is known to become more pronounced toward lower collision energies.

• Received 3 October 2014
• Revised 6 January 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.91.024904