$D$ and $\bar{D}$ mesons in hot and dense matter

TL;DR

This paper investigates the behavior of D and anti-D mesons in hot, dense nuclear matter using a self-consistent coupled-channel approach, revealing modifications in their spectral properties and implications for J/ψ suppression.

Contribution

It introduces a self-consistent coupled-channel model with a broken SU(4) interaction to study in-medium D and anti-D mesons at finite temperature and density.

Findings

D mesons show a broadening of spectral density with increasing density.

Lambda_c and Sigma_c resonances stay near their free-space positions but gain width.

The low-density theorem fails for anti-D mesons near saturation density.

Abstract

The $D$ and $\bar {D}$ mesons are studied in hot dense matter within a self-consistent coupled-channel approach taking, as bare interaction, a broken SU(4) s-wave Tomozawa-Weinberg interaction supplemented by an attractive isoscalar-scalar term. The in-medium solution at finite temperature incorporates Pauli blocking effects, baryon mean-field bindings, and $\pi$ and open-charm meson self-energies. In the $DN$ sector, the $\Lambda_c$ and $\Sigma_c$ resonances remain close to their free-space position while acquiring a remarkable width. As a result, the $D$ meson spectral density shows a single pronounced peak close to the free mass that broadens with increasing density specially towards lower energies. The low-density theorem is not a good approximation for the repulsive $\bar D$ self-energy close to saturation density. We discuss the implications for the $J/\Psi$ suppression at CBM (FAIR).