Charmonium correlators at finite temperature in quenched lattice QCD

TL;DR

This study investigates charmonium correlators at finite temperature using quenched lattice QCD, applying advanced spectral analysis methods to explore the survival of bound states above the critical temperature.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive analysis of charmonium spectral functions at finite temperature using multiple methods, highlighting the potential persistence of bound states above T_c.

Findings

No mass shift or width change at 0.9 T_c

Bound-state-like structures may survive above T_c

Methods are validated at T=0 before finite temperature application

Abstract

We study charmonium correlators at finite temperature using quenched lattice QCD simulations. Two analysis procedures are applied to extract information on the spectral function: the maximum entropy method, and the $\chi^2$ fit analyses including the constrained curve fitting. We focus on the low energy structure of the spectral function by applying the smearing technique. We first discuss the applicability of these methods to the finite temperatures by analyzing the data at T=0 with restricted numbers of degrees of freedom. Then we apply these methods to the correlators at $T>0$. We find no indication of mass shift and finite width for the charmonium states at $T\simeq 0.9T_c$. The results at $T\simeq 1.1 T_c$ imply that bound-state-like structures may survive even above $T_c$.