Non-perturbative quarkonium dissociation rates in strongly coupled quark-gluon plasma

Abstract

Heavy quarks and quarkonia are versatile probes of the transport properties of the hot QCD medium produced in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions (URHICs). A robust description of heavy-flavor transport coefficients requires a microscopic approach that treats the open and hidden heavy-flavor sectors on the same footing. Here, we employ the quantum many-body $T$-matrix formalism to evaluate the dissociation rates of heavy quarkonia in the quark-gluon plasma (QGP). The basic ingredient is the heavy-light $T$-matrix, which utilizes a nonperturbative driving kernel constrained by lattice-QCD data. Its resummation in a ladder series provides a much enhanced interaction strength compared to previously used perturbative coupling to the quasiparticle partons in the QGP. The in-medium quarkonium properties, particularly their temperature-dependent binding energies, are evaluated self-consistently using the same interaction kernel, including interference effects (also referred to as the imaginary part of the heavy-quark potential) as well as off-shell parton spectral functions. We systematically investigate the interplay of these effects and elaborate on the connections to the dipole approximation used in effective field theory.