A fundamental test of the Higgs Yukawa coupling at RHIC in A+A collisions
Searches for the intermediate boson, W±, the heavy quantum of the Weak Interaction, via its semi-leptonic decay, W → e+v, in the 1970's instead discovered unexpectedly large hadron production at high pT, notably π0, which provided a huge background of e± from internal and external conversions. Methods developed at the CERN ISR which led to the discovery of direct-single-e± in 1974, later determined to be from the semi-leptonic decay of charm which had not yet been discovered, were used by PHENIX at RHIC to make precision measurements of heavy quark production in p-p and Au+Au collisions, leading to the puzzle of apparent equal suppression of light and heavy quarks in the QGP. If the Higgs mechanism gives mass to gauge bosons but not to fermions, then a proposal that all 6 quarks are nearly massless in a QGP, which would resolve the puzzle, can not be excluded. This proposal can be tested with future measurements of heavy quark correlations in A+A collisions