Heavy quarks at finite temperature

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent lattice gauge theory results on heavy quark probes in the quark-gluon plasma, focusing on bottomonia, the static quark-antiquark potential, and heavy-quark diffusion, with implications for heavy-ion collision experiments.

Contribution

It summarizes recent advances in lattice QCD calculations relevant for understanding heavy quark behavior in the quark-gluon plasma.

Findings

Progress in lattice calculations of in-medium bottomonia properties

Nonperturbative insights into the static quark-antiquark potential at finite temperature

Improved estimates of the heavy-quark momentum diffusion coefficient

Abstract

New incarnations of heavy-ion collision experiments are turning our attention to hard processes and a more fine-grained resolution of the QGP. In this endeavor quarkonia or open heavy flavors turn out to be versatile probes, which are usually described through models based on perturbative QCD, AdS, and effective field theories. The lattice provides nonperturbative input and constraints to such models.\newline In-medium bottomonia, the complex static quark-antiquark potential, and the heavy-quark momentum diffusion coefficient are key quantities where lattice gauge theory has recently achieved significant progress with impact for heavy-ion phenomenology. We review these lattice results, relate them to phenomenological applications, and close with an outlook.