Heavy flavor production and interaction in heavy Ion Collision

Heavy quarks (charm and beauty) are powerful probes to study high-energy hadronic collisions. They are mainly produced in hard parton scattering processes with large momentum transfer, thus their production cross-sections can be calculated within the framework of perturbative quantum chromodynamics (pQCD). In ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions a hot and dense QCD matter, called Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP), is produced. Heavy quarks have been extensively used to test pQCD in proton-proton collisions, to study different cold nuclear-matter effects in proton-nucleus collisions, and to investigate the production and properties of the QGP in heavy-ion collisions. The experimental tools used in the field of heavy-ion physics can be extended to study the structure and dynamics of hadronic matter at the future Electron-Ion-Collider (EIC). In this talk, I will present a review of heavy-flavour hadron measurements at RHIC and at the LHC, and discuss what we have learnt from these results. These measurements can form a useful input to develop a rich physics program at the EIC.