Thermal Charm and Charmonium Production in Quark Gluon Plasma

TL;DR

This paper investigates how thermal charm production influences charmonium regeneration in quark-gluon plasma, predicting a transition from suppression to enhancement of J/Ψ production at future collider energies.

Contribution

It introduces a kinetic model incorporating thermal charm production to predict charmonium yields and nuclear modification factors across different collider energies.

Findings

Thermal charm production significantly alters charmonium yields.

J/Ψ suppression at current colliders may turn into enhancement at FCC.

Predicted R_{AA} > 1 at low p_t for FCC energies.

Abstract

We study the effect of thermal charm production on charmonium regeneration in high energy nuclear collisions. By solving the kinetic equations for charm quark and charmonium distributions in Pb+Pb collisions, we calculate the global and differential nuclear modification factors $R_{AA}(N_{part})$ and $R{AA}(p_t)$ for $J/\Psi$s. Due to the thermal charm production in hot medium, the charmonium production source changes from the initially created charm quarks at SPS, RHIC and LHC to the thermally produced charm quarks at Future Circular Collider (FCC), and the $J/\Psi$ suppression ($R_{AA}<1$) observed so far will be replaced by a strong enhancement ($R_{AA}>1$) at FCC at low transverse momentum.