In-medium QCD forces at high temperature

TL;DR

This paper develops a quantum framework to describe in-medium QCD forces acting on heavy quarks in a high-temperature quark-gluon plasma, incorporating Debye screening, drag, and fluctuations within an open quantum systems approach.

Contribution

It introduces a unified quantum description of in-medium QCD forces at high temperature using influence functional formalism, accounting for screening and dissipative effects.

Findings

Derivation of Debye screened QCD force in the medium

Quantification of drag force and fluctuations on heavy quarks

Unified quantum formalism for in-medium QCD interactions

Abstract

We derive the quantum dynamics of heavy quark systems in quark-gluon plasma as open quantum systems. The scatterings of a heavy quark with the hard medium particles give rise to Debye screened QCD force and drag force and its fluctuation. We present a unified quantum description of these in-medium QCD forces at high temperature in the leading-order perturbation on the basis of the influence functional formalism.