Q¯ modes in the Quark-Gluon Plasma

Abstract

We study the evolution of heavy quarkonium states with temperature in a Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) by evaluating an in-medium Q \( \bar Q \) T-matrix within a reduced Bethe-Salpeter equation in S- and P-wave channels. The interaction kernel is extracted from finite-temperature QCD lattice calculations of the singlet free energy of a Q \( \bar Q \) pair. Quarkonium bound states are found to gradually move across the Q \( \bar Q \) threshold after which they rapidly dissolve in the hot system. We calculate Euclidean-time correlation functions and compare to results from lattice QCD. We also study finite-width effects in the heavy-quark propagators.