Heavy quarks and quarkonia Original Research Article

This paper is a review of the latest results on heavy flavor production presented during the Quark Matter 2005 conference in Budapest. The measurements of J/ψ production performed at CERN SPS by NA60 are discussed together with the latest NA50 results. Surprisingly, none of the models that have been shown to account for NA50 Pb+Pb data is able to reproduce NA60 In+In points. The PHENIX experiment at RHIC also presented results on J/ψ production. When interpreting these results, several cold nuclear effects have to be taken into account, as J/ψ absorption by interactions with nucleons, or modification of parton distribution functions in the nuclei. The interpretation of RHIC data is still unclear, but a precise study of J/ψ rapidity and transverse momentum distributions could help to discriminate the different models. In addition, data on open charm have been presented by RHIC experiments. Some implications of these new results for J/ψ production are also discussed.