Anomalous J/psi suppression and charmonium dissociation cross sections

Abstract

We study $J/\psi$ suppression in Pb+Pb collisions at CERN-SPS energies in hadronic matter with energy- and temperature-dependent charmonium dissociation cross sections calculated in the quark-interchange model of Barnes and Swanson. We find that the variation of J/$\psi$ survival probability from peripheral to central collisions can be explained as induced by hadronic matter absorption in central collisions.

Comments: 30 pages, 8 figures, LaTex, changed for the latest NA50 data