Heavy quarkonium dissociation cross sections in relativistic heavy-ion collisions

Abstract

Many of the hadron-hadron cross sections required for the study of the dynamics of matter produced in relativistic heavy-ion collisions can be calculated using the quark-interchange model. Here we evaluate the low-energy dissociation cross sections of $J/\ensuremath{\psi},$ ${\ensuremath{\psi}}^{\ensuremath{'}},$ \ensuremath{\chi}, $\ensuremath{\Upsilon},$ and ${\ensuremath{\Upsilon}}^{\ensuremath{'}}$ in collision with \ensuremath{\pi}, \ensuremath{\rho}, and K. These are important for the interpretation of heavy-quarkonium suppression as a signature for the quark gluon plasma, as such comover dissociation processes also contribute to heavy-quarkonium suppression, and must be understood and incorporated in simulations of heavy-ion collisions before QGP formation can be established through this signature.