# An Effective Theory of Quarkonia in QCD Matter

## TL;DR

This paper develops a new effective field theory, NRQCD with Glauber gluons, to describe how heavy quarkonia interact with various strongly interacting nuclear media, unifying different phases in a first-principles approach.

## Contribution

It introduces a universal microscopic theory for quarkonium interactions in nuclear matter, extending NRQCD to include Glauber gluons for the first time.

## Key findings

- Provides a consistent description across different nuclear phases.
- Derives the theory from first principles.
- Enhances understanding of quarkonium suppression patterns.

## Abstract

For heavy quarkonia of moderate energy, we generalize the relevant successful theory, non-relativistic Quantum Chromodynamics (NRQCD), to include interactions in nuclear matter. The new resulting theory, NRQCD with Glauber gluons, provides for the first time a universal microscopic description of the interaction of heavy quarkonia with a strongly interacting medium, consistently applicable to a range of phases, such as cold nuclear matter, dense hadron gas, and quark-gluon plasma. The effective field theory we present in this work is derived from first principles and is an important step forward in understanding the common trends in proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus data on quarkonium suppression.