What happens to the Upsilon and eta_b in the quark-gluon plasma? Bottomonium spectral functions from lattice QCD

TL;DR

This study investigates how bottomonium states, specifically Upsilon and eta_b, behave in the quark-gluon plasma across various temperatures using lattice QCD with NRQCD, revealing ground state survival and excited state suppression.

Contribution

It provides the first lattice QCD spectral functions for bottomonium in the quark-gluon plasma, comparing results with effective field theory predictions and analyzing systematic uncertainties.

Findings

Ground states survive up to 2.09 T_c

Excited states are suppressed at higher temperatures

Spectral functions agree with EFT predictions

Abstract

We study bottomonium spectral functions in the quark-gluon plasma in the Upsilon and eta_b channels, using lattice QCD simulations with two flavours of light quark on highly anisotropic lattices. The bottom quark is treated with nonrelativistic QCD (NRQCD). In the temperature range we consider, 0.42 < T/T_c < 2.09, we find that the ground states survive, whereas the excited states are suppressed as the temperature is increased. The position and width of the ground states are compared to analytical effective field theory (EFT) predictions. Systematic uncertainties of the maximum entropy method (MEM), used to construct the spectral functions, are discussed in some detail.