MEASUREMENT OF D⁰ DIRECTED FLOW AND ELLIPTIC FLOW IN AU+AU COLLISIONS AT √^s_NN = 200 GEV

A strongly interacting Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP) is created in relativistic heavy ion collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). Owning to their large mass, charm quarks are produced by initial parton-parton hard scatterings and experience the entire evolution of the QGP medium created in heavy ion collisions. They can therefore be a valuable tool to study the early time dynamics and the properties of the QGP. Many experimental observables are exploited to extract the information of QGP. This thesis analyzes the directed flow (v1) and the elliptic flow (v2) of D0 mesons (carrying a charm quark) using data collected by the Heavy Flavor Tracker in the STAR experiment in 2014 and 2016 RHIC runs. The v1 and v2 are measured by the first and second order Fourier coefficients of the D0 azimuthal distribution relative to the reaction plane. The measurements help constrain the parameters in theoretical models to describe heavy quark dynamics in the QGP. The measurements are compared to the v1(2) of light flavors to shed additional insights on the QGP.