Heavy quark bound states in a quark-gluon plasma: dissociation and recombination

TL;DR

This paper develops a framework to study heavy quark dynamics in a quark-gluon plasma, capturing bound state formation and dissociation through a generalized Langevin equation, with simulations illustrating key phenomena.

Contribution

It introduces a generalized Langevin equation approach for heavy quark dynamics in a plasma, including bound state formation and dissociation, applicable to both Abelian and non-Abelian cases.

Findings

Bound states dissociate due to screening and collisions.

Recombination occurs with sufficient heavy quark density.

Simulations demonstrate various plasma effects on heavy quarks.

Abstract

We present a comprehensive approach to the dynamics of heavy quarks in a quark gluon plasma, including the possibility of bound state formation and dissociation. In this exploratory paper, we restrict ourselves to the case of an Abelian plasma, but the extension of the techniques used to the non Abelian case is straightforward. A chain of well defined approximations leads eventually to a generalized Langevin equation, where the force and the noise terms are determined from a correlation function of the equilibrium plasma, and depend explicitly on the configuration of the heavy quarks. We solve the Langevin equation for various initial conditions, various numbers of heavy quark-antiquark pairs, and various temperatures of the plasma. Results of simulations illustrate various expected phenomena: dissociation of bound states as a result of combined effects of screening of the potential and collisions with the plasma constituent, formation of bound pairs (recombination) that occurs when enough heavy quarks are present in the system.