Open quantum system approach for heavy quark thermalization

TL;DR

This paper models heavy quark thermalization in a hot medium using an open quantum system approach, deriving a stochastic Schrödinger equation to simulate their dynamical evolution and interactions.

Contribution

It introduces a novel open quantum system framework with a stochastic Schrödinger equation for heavy quarks in a thermal medium, including the effects of random scatterings.

Findings

Heavy quarks thermalize in the medium with different coupling strengths.

The stochastic wave function approach captures momentum distribution evolution.

The method provides insights into heavy quark dynamics in quark-gluon plasma.

Abstract

We treat heavy quark as an open quantum system in the hot medium and rederive the Stochastic Schr\"odinger Equation (SSE) from the full Schr\"odinger equation for both heavy quarks and the medium. We apply the SSE to the dynamical evolutions of heavy quarks (as a system) in the static hot medium (as an environment). Heavy quarks interact with the medium via random scatterings, which exchange the momentum and phase factor randomly between two wave functions of the system and the environment. The exchange of momentum and phase factor results in the transition between different eigenstates of the system. These are included via an external stochastic potential in the Hamiltonian of SSE. Stochastic wave functions of heavy quarks are evolved with the stochastic external potential. The mean wave functions and the corresponding momentum distributions of heavy quarks are obtained after the ensemble average over a large set of stochastic wave functions. We present the thermalization of heavy quarks in the static medium with different coupling strength.