The study of heavy flavor production in relativistic heavy ion collisions is an extreme experimental challenge but provides important information on the properties of the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) created in Au+Au collisions at RHIC. Heavy quarks are believed to be produced in the initial stages of the collision, and are essential on the understanding of parton energy loss in the dense medium created in such environment. Moreover, heavy-flavor quarkonia production is an important tool to understand deconfinement. In this work we review recent results on open heavy flavor and quarkonia production and their interaction with the hot and dense medium at RHIC.
Heavy flavors; Heavy-ion collisions
