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Fate of in-medium heavy quarks via a
Lindblad equation
Davide de Boni (Swansea University)
Heavy-quark bound states have been studied intensively in order to
understand the behaviour of QCD matter at very high density and/or
temperature, which can be found in neutron stars and as a result of the
relativistic heavy-ion collision experiments, respectively.
The study of the dynamics of heavy-quark bound states in these extreme
conditions represents one of the most promising tools towards an
understanding of the properties of the quark-gluon plasma in which they
propagate. In particular, the dissociation and (re)combination of these
bound states give a precious insight into the features of the hot and
dense matter.
Therefore the heavy quarks can be thought as probes of the medium in which
they move, and the most appropriate framework to study such a system is
the one of the open quantum systems.
Within this framework we obtain a master
equation of the Lindblad type that describes the quantum dynamics of the
heavy quarks in a medium. The Lindblad equations for a heavy quark and a
heavy quark-antiquark pair are derived from the gauge theory, following
a chain of well-defined approximations. Here the case of an abelian
plasma has been considered. A one-dimensional simulation of the Lindblad
equation is performed to extract information about bound-state
dissociation, recombination and quantum decoherence for a heavy
quark-antiquark pair.
Nuclear Physics Colloquium