Un-screened forces in Quark-Gluon Plasma?

TL;DR

This study investigates the heavy quark-antiquark potential in quark-gluon plasma using lattice QCD, revealing that the potential's real part is not screened at high temperatures, challenging previous assumptions about quarkonium melting.

Contribution

It provides a novel lattice QCD analysis of the heavy quark potential at finite temperature, showing non-screening of the real part contrary to common expectations.

Findings

Real part of the potential is not screened at temperatures up to 352 MeV.

Spectral analysis indicates a broadened peak in the correlator.

Implications for quarkonium suppression in quark-gluon plasma.

Abstract

We study the correlator of temporal Wilson lines at non-zero temperature in 2+1 flavor lattice QCD with the aim to define the heavy quark-antiquark potential at non-zero temperature. For temperatures $153~{\rm MeV} \leq T \leq 352~{\rm MeV}$ the spectral representation of this correlator is consistent with a broadened peak in the spectral function, position or width of which then defines the real or imaginary parts of the heavy quark-antiquark potential at non-zero temperature, respectively. We find that the potential's real part is not screened contrary to the widely-held expectations. We comment on how this fact may modify the picture of quarkonium melting in the quark-gluon plasma.