Collisional dissociation of heavy mesons in dense QCD matter

Abstract

In the framework of the reaction operator approach we calculate and resum the multiple elastic scattering of a fast q q ¯ system traversing dense nuclear matter. We derive the collisional broadening of the meson's transverse momentum and the distortion of its intrinsic light cone wave function. The medium-induced dissociation probability of heavy mesons is shown to be sensitive to the opacity of the quark–gluon plasma and the time dependence of its formation and evolution. We solve the system of coupled rate equations that describe the competition between the fragmentation of c- and b-quarks and the QGP-induced dissociation of the D- and B-mesons to evaluate the quenching of heavy hadrons in nucleus–nucleus collisions. In contrast to previous results on heavy quark modification, this approach predicts suppression of B-mesons comparable to that of D-mesons at transverse momenta as low as p T ∼ 10 GeV . It allows for an improved description of the large attenuation of non-photonic electrons in central Au + Au reactions at RHIC.