The suppression of the nuclear modification factor for heavy flavor hadrons is usually attributed to the energy loss of heavy quarks propagating in a QCD plasma. Nevertheless it is puzzling that the suppression is as strong as for light flavors. We show that when accounting for the quark momentum shift associated to the opening of the recombination/coalescence channel for hadron production in the plasma, it is not necessary to invoke such strong energy loss. This shift is expressed in terms of an increase of the heavy baryon to meson ratio in nuclear with respect to proton collisions. When this mechanism is included along with a moderate energy loss, data from RHIC and LHC for the nuclear modification factor of electrons coming from heavy flavor decays as well as of charm mesons, can be reasonably described.
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