Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: The quark–gluon plasma (QGP) is a strongly coupled medium in which both open and hidden charm particles experience substantial nonperturbative interactions. This poses a major challenge for a quantitative description of charmonium transport in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions, as it requires a mutually consistent treatment of pertinent transport coefficients. In this work, we present a coupled charm-charmonium transport framework for a strongly coupled QGP based on thermodynamic T -matrix interactions with recent constraints from Wilson-line correlators (WLCs) computed in lattice QCD. For the first time, the same underlying heavy-light interactions and in-medium spectral functions are used to self-consistently evaluate charm-quark diffusion and charmonium kinetics. In particular, the charmonium equilibrium limit, a critical transport parameter for regeneration, is evaluated in the presence of broad spectral functions. Charm-quark diffusion is simulated via Langevin dynamics and coupled to a Boltzmann equation for charmonium dissociation and regeneration. The equilibrium limit of the statistical model is recovered once charm quarks thermalize, and its extension to describe off-equilibrium is constructed. Preliminary applications to charmonium observables in Pb–Pb collisions at the LHC capture the measured centrality and momentum dependence fairly well.
Source: The European Physical Journal A
Authors: Kaiyu Fu, Biaogang Wu, Ralf Rapp
Institutions: Texas A&M University, Kent State University
Language: English
Subfield: Nuclear and High Energy Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,990
OpenAlex ID: W7167060159