Thermalization of heavy quarks in the quark-gluon plasma
Abstract
Charm- and bottom-quark rescattering in a quark-gluon plasma (QGP) is investigated with the objective of assessing the approach toward thermalization. Employing a Fokker-Planck equation to approximate the collision integral of the Boltzmann equation we augment earlier studies based on perturbative parton cross sections by introducing resonant heavy-light quark interactions. The latter are motivated by recent QCD lattice calculations that indicate the presence of “hadronic” states in the QGP. We model these states by colorless (pseudo-) scalar and (axial-) vector D and B mesons within a heavy-quark effective theory framework. We find that the presence of these resonances at moderate QGP temperatures substantially accelerates the kinetic equilibration of c quarks as compared to using perturbative interactions. We also comment on consequences for D-meson observables in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions.
- Publication:
-
Physical Review C
- Pub Date:
- March 2005
- DOI:
- 10.1103/PhysRevC.71.034907
- arXiv:
- arXiv:nucl-th/0412015
- Bibcode:
- 2005PhRvC..71c4907V
- Keywords:
-
- 12.38.Mh;
- 24.85.+p;
- 25.75.Nq;
- Quark-gluon plasma;
- Quarks gluons and QCD in nuclei and nuclear processes;
- Quark deconfinement quark-gluon plasma production and phase transitions;
- Nuclear Theory;
- High Energy Physics - Phenomenology;
- Nuclear Experiment
- E-Print:
- 14 pages, 5 figures, v2: Added references, v2: Added further references, some typos corrected