Will Horowitz, University of Cape Town

"Phenomenology with open heavy flavor suppression from pQCD and AdS/CFT"

Abstract: We present predictions for open heavy flavor observables at RHIC and LHC using weak-coupling pQCD techniques and compare them to results using strong-coupling AdS/CFT methods. We show that the predictions from pQCD and AdS/CFT are consistent with current experimental measurements. We then provide projections for future sPHENIX measurements from AdS/CFT and propose a novel high-pT observable for distinguishing between a strongly-coupled vs. weakly-coupled quark-gluon plasma.