Temperature-dependent cross sections for meson-meson nonresonant reactions in hadronic matter

TL;DR

This paper develops a temperature-dependent potential model to study how meson masses and cross sections for nonresonant reactions vary with temperature in hadronic matter, revealing how meson properties change near the QCD phase transition.

Contribution

It introduces a temperature-dependent potential and solves the Schrödinger equation to determine meson properties and reaction cross sections at different temperatures, a novel approach in this context.

Findings

Cross sections vary with temperature due to changes in meson radii and masses.

Meson masses decrease or increase with temperature depending on the reaction.

Parametrized temperature-dependent cross sections and meson masses are provided.

Abstract

We present a potential of which the short-distance part is given by one gluon exchange plus perturbative one- and two-loop corrections and of which the large-distance part exhibits a temperature-dependent constant value. The Schrodinger equation with this temperature-dependent potential yields a temperature dependence of the mesonic quark-antiquark relative-motion wave function and of meson masses. The temperature dependence of the potential, the wave function and the meson masses brings about temperature dependence of cross sections for the nonresonant reactions pi pi -> rho rho for I=2, KK -> K* K* for I=1, KK* -> K* K* for I=1, pi K -> rho K* for I=3/2, pi K* -> rho K* for I=3/2, rho K -> rho K* for I=3/2 and pi K* -> rho K for I=3/2. As the temperature increases, the rise or fall of peak cross sections is determined by the increased radii of initial mesons, the loosened bound states of final mesons, and the total-mass difference of the initial and final mesons. The temperature-dependent cross sections and meson masses are parametrized.