[Submitted on 16 Jan 2015] (cross-list from hep-ph)
Quarkonium Binding and Entropic Force
A Q-Qbar bound state represents a balance between repulsive kinetic and attractive potential energy. In a hot quark-gluon plasma, the interaction potential experiences medium effects. Color screening modifies the attractive binding force between the quarks, while the increase of entropy with Q-Qbar separation gives rise to a growing repulsion. We study the role of these phenomena for in-medium Q-Qbar binding and dissociation. It is found that the relevant potential for Q-Qbar binding is the free energy F; with increasing Q-Qbar separation, further binding through the internal energy U is compensated by repulsive entropic effects.
- Comments:
- 11 pages, 8 figures
- Subjects:
- High Energy Physics — Phenomenology (hep-ph); High Energy Physics — Theory (hep-th); Nuclear Theory (nucl-th)
- arXiv:
- 1501.03940 [pdf]