Charmonium dissociation and recombination at RHIC and LHC

Abstract

Charmonium production at heavy-ion colliders is considered within the comovers-interaction model. The formalism is extended by including possible secondary J/ψ production through recombination and an estimate of recombination effects is made without adjusting the model parameters. The comovers-interaction model also includes a comprehensive treatment of initial-state nuclear effects, which are discussed in the context of such high energies. With these tools, the model properly describes the centrality and the rapidity dependence of experimental data at RHIC energy, $\sqrt{s}=200$ GeV, for both Au+Au and Cu+Cu collisions. Predictions for LHC, $\sqrt{s}=5.5$ TeV, are presented and the assumptions and extrapolations involved are discussed.