The influence of heavy quark potential on quarkonium production in quark-gluon plasma

TL;DR

This paper extends the Remler formalism to include potential energy effects in strongly bound quarkonium states within quark-gluon plasma, showing that an attractive potential enhances production consistent with statistical models.

Contribution

It introduces a modified Remler formalism accounting for potential energy in strongly bound states, improving quarkonium production predictions in QGP.

Findings

Attractive heavy-quark potential enhances quarkonium production.

Results align with statistical model predictions when a spatial cutoff is used.

Extension of formalism to strongly bound states in QGP.

Abstract

Remler formalism is the Wigner projection of a two particle state to bound states, which is carried out when the bound state begins to exist or when one of the two particles scatters in medium. This method has been successfully applied to quarkonium production in box simulations and in heavy-ion collisions. In this study this method is extended to strongly bound states with considerable binding energies by taking into account the potential energy between heavy quark pairs in the quark-gluon plasma (QGP). We find that an attractive heavy-quark potential enhances quarkonium production and the results are consistent with those from the statistical model in box simulations, if a proper spatial cutoff is introduced to the potential to mimic quantum effects.