Heaviness of Heavy Quarkonia in Heavy Ion Collisions

TL;DR

This paper discusses how heavy quarkonium states, like J/ψ, are used to probe the properties of the quark-gluon plasma created in high-energy heavy ion collisions at RHIC, revealing insights into the medium's characteristics.

Contribution

It presents experimental results from PHENIX on J/ψ production and explores their implications for understanding the quark-gluon plasma's properties.

Findings

J/ψ suppression observed in heavy ion collisions

Insights into color screening effects in the medium

Implications for quark-gluon plasma characteristics

Abstract

High energy heavy ion collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) produce a novel medium characterized by an initial energy density over an order of magnitude above the expected phase transformation value and that then evolves as a nearly inviscid liquid. Probing the medium with auto-generated particles is a key methodology to quantitatively determine the medium properties. Pairs of heavy quarks are an excellent probe since their spatial separation to form various quarkonia states spans the relevant range of color screening lengths in the medium. In this proceedings, we describe results from the PHENIX experiment on $J/\psi$ production and discuss initial physics implications of the measurements.