Abstract
The study of heavy flavor production in proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions is a sensitive probe of the hot and dense matter created in such collisions.
Installation of silicon vertex detectors in the PHENIX experiment, and increased performance of the BNL RHIC collider allowed collection of large amount of data on heavy flavor production in small colliding systems.
In this talk we will present recent PHENIX results on open heavy flavor and quarkonia production in p+p, p+A, d+A, and He3+A colliding systems in a broad rapidity range, and discuss how these measurements help us to better understand all stages of nuclear collisions at high energy.