Aspects of quarkonium propagation in a thermal medium as seen by string models

Abstract

We use gauge/string duality to model a heavy quark-antiquark pair in a color singlet moving through a thermal plasma. In particular, we explore the effect of velocity on the string tension and Debye screening mass. Then we apply the results to the analysis of heavy quarkonium bound states. With some assumptions, we estimate the characteristic size of quarkonium and its dissociation temperature.

Comments: 17 pages, 8 figures; v2: improved presentation and discussion, typos corrected, references added