Charm and bottom production at RHIC

The current status of charm and bottom production measurements at RHIC is summarized. Heavy-flavor data from p + p collisions at s = 200 GeV provide a crucial testing ground for perturbative QCD calculations and serve as a baseline for measurements in nucleus–nucleus collisions. Due to their large mass heavy quarks are produced in hard parton scattering processes in the earliest phase of a nucleus–nucleus collisions such that they can be used to probe the hot and dense medium that is formed in the course of Au+Au collisions at RHIC.