Quarkonium formation time in quark-gluon plasma

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the formation time of quarkonium states varies in a quark-gluon plasma, revealing temperature dependence and differences based on potential models, with implications for understanding QGP properties.

Contribution

It introduces a method to calculate quarkonium formation time in QGP using lattice QCD-derived potentials and correlators, highlighting temperature effects and potential model dependencies.

Findings

Formation time increases with temperature.

Diverges near dissociation temperature.

Longer formation times with free energy potential.

Abstract

The quarkonium formation time in a quark-gluon plasma (QGP) is determined from the space-time correlator of heavy quark vector currents using the quarkonium in-medium mass and wave function obtained from heavy quark potentials extracted from the lattice QCD. It is found that the formation time of a quarkonium increases with the temperature of the QGP and diverges near its dissociation temperature. Also, the quarkonium formation time is longer if the heavy quark potential is taken to be the free energy from lattice calculations for a heavy quark pair, compared to that based on the more negative internal energy.