Investigating $D^0$ meson production in $p-$Pb collisions at 5.02 TeV with a multi-phase transport model

Abstract

We study the production of $D^0$ meson in $p$+$p$ and $p-$Pb collisions using the improved AMPT model considering both coalescence and independent fragmentation of charm quarks after the Cronin broadening are included. After a detailed discussion of the improvements implemented in the AMPT model for heavy quark production, we show that the modified AMPT model can provide good description of $D^0$ meson spectra in $p-$Pb collisions, the $Q_{\mathrm{pPb}}$ data at different centrality and $R_{\mathrm{pPb}}$ data in both mid- and forward (backward) rapidities. We also studied the effects of nuclear shadowing and parton cascade on the rapidity dependence of $D^0$ meson production and $R_{\mathrm{pPb}}$. Our results indicate that having the same strength of the Cronin (i.e $\delta$ value) obtained from the mid-rapidity data leads to a considerable overestimation of the $D^0$ meson spectra and $R_{\mathrm{pPb}}$ data at high $p_T$ in the backward rapidity. As a result, the $\delta$ is determined via a ${\chi }^2$ fitting of the $R_{\mathrm{pPb}}$ data across various rapidities. This work lays the foundation for a better understanding of cold-nuclear-matter (CNM) effects in relativistic heavy-ion collisions.