Heavy quarks in nucleus-nucleus collisions: from RHIC to LHC

Abstract: We present a study of the heavy-flavor dynamics in nucleus-nucleus collisions. The initial (hard) production of c and b quarks is taken from NLO pQCD predictions. The presence of a hot medium (a Quark Gluon Plasma described by hydrodynamics) affects the final spectra of open-charm (beauty) hadrons and their decay electrons with respect to what found in pp collisions. The propagation of c and b quarks in the plasma is based on a picture of multiple uncorrelated random collisions, described by a relativistic Langevin equation. A microscopic evaluation of the transport coefficients is provided within a pQCD approach (with proper resummation of medium effects). Results for the final spectra of heavy-flavor hadrons and decay-electrons are given, with particular emphasis on R_AA and v_2.