Heavy flavor suppression: role of hadronic matter

The role of hadronic matter in the suppression of open heavy flavored meson has been studied. The heavy-quarks (HQs) suppression factors have been calculated for nuclear collisions at Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and Large Hadronic Collider (LHC) energies to demonstrate the relevance of the hadronic phase. It is found that the suppression in the hadronic phase at RHIC energy is around 20%-25% whereas at the LHC it is around 10%-12% for the D meson. In case of B meson the hadronic suppression is around 10%-12% and 5%-6% at RHIC and LHC energies respectively. Present study suggests that the suppression of heavy flavor in the hadronic phase is significant at RHIC. However, the effect of hadronic suppression at LHC is marginal, this makes the characterization of QGP at LHC less complicated.