CHARM QUARK PRODUCTION IN NONCENTRAL HEAVY-ION COLLISIONS

The effect of gluon shadowing on charm quark production in large impac t parameter ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions is investigated. Ch arm quark production cross sections are calculated for a range of nonc entral impact parameters which can be determined from the global trans verse energy distribution. We show that charm quark production is a go od probe of the local parton density which determines the effectivenes s of shadowing. We discuss why shadowing may have a spatial dependence and show that this spatial dependence may be detected in noncentral h eavy ion collisions.