Bottomonium sequential suppression and strong heavy-quark potential in heavy-ion collisions

Abstract

We employ the time-dependent Schrödinger equation with different complex potentials to study the bottomonium sequential suppression in Pb-Pb collisions at sNN=2.76 TeV and 5.02 TeV and Au-Au collisions at sNN=200 GeV. Both color screening effect and the random scatterings with thermal partons are considered in the real and imaginary parts of the heavy-quark potentials. As the real part of the heavy-quark potential is between the free energy F(T,r) and the internal energy U(T,r) of heavy quarkonium, we parametrize different potentials with a function of F and U to evolve the bottomonium wave packages in the medium. We find that when the real part of the potential is close to U(T,r), it can explain well the pattern of bottomonium sequential suppression where their nuclear modification factors satisfy the relation RAA(1s)>RAA(2s)>RAA(3s) observed in experiments. In the other limit of F(T,r), bottomonium wave packages tend to expand due to weak attracted force, which results in evident transitions from ϒ(2s) to ϒ(3s) components and does not satisfy the sequential suppression pattern. We suggest that the bottomonium sequential suppression can be a probe of strong heavy-quark potential in the medium.