Thermal width of the upsilon at large 't Hooft coupling

Area of Science:

• High-energy physics
• Quantum chromodynamics
• String theory

Background:

• The behavior of strongly coupled plasma is crucial for understanding heavy-ion collisions.
• Heavy quarkonia states are sensitive probes of the plasma environment.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the thermal width of heavy quarkonia in a strongly coupled plasma using the anti-de Sitter/conformal field theory correspondence.
• To explore the implications of the heavy quark potential's imaginary part for experimental observations.

Main Methods:

• Utilizing the anti-de Sitter/conformal field theory (AdS/CFT) correspondence.
• Analyzing the dual gravity description of a strongly coupled plasma with heavy quarks.
• Examining thermal fluctuations of classical strings in the bulk.

Main Results:

• The heavy quark potential develops an imaginary part at finite temperatures.
• Deeply bound heavy quarkonia states acquire a small, non-zero thermal width under specific conditions (large 't Hooft coupling and large number of colors).
• Thermal fluctuations of the classical string's bottom in the bulk contribute to the imaginary part.

Conclusions:

• The study predicts a significant suppression of Upsilon mesons in heavy-ion collisions.
• The observed suppression can potentially be used to estimate the initial temperature of the strongly coupled plasma.