Quarkonium propagation in the quark gluon plasma

TL;DR

This paper reviews the development of theoretical models describing how quarkonium states behave and are affected within the quark-gluon plasma created in high-energy heavy ion collisions, providing insights into QGP properties.

Contribution

It summarizes recent advances in understanding quarkonium propagation in QGP, highlighting new theoretical approaches and their phenomenological implications.

Findings

Quarkonium states are sensitive probes of QGP properties.

Theoretical models have evolved to better describe quarkonium suppression and regeneration.

These models help interpret experimental data from RHIC and LHC.

Abstract

In relativistic heavy ion collisions at RHIC and the LHC, a quark gluon plasma (QGP) is created for a short duration of about 10fm/c. Quarkonia (bound states of $c\bar{c}$ and $b\bar{b}$) are sensitive probes of this phase on length scales comparable to the size of the bound states which are less than 1fm. Observations of quarkonia in these collisions provide us with a lot of information about how the presence of a QGP affects various quarkonium states. This has motivated the development of the theory of heavy quarks and their bound states in a thermal medium, and its application to the phenomenology of quarkonia in heavy ion collisions. We review some of these developments here.