Paper detail

A first look at Bottomonium melting via a stochastic potential

We investigate the phenomenon of Bottomonium melting in a thermal quark-gluon plasma using three-dimensional stochastic simulations based on the concept of open-quantum systems. In this non-relativistic framework, introduced in [Phys.Rev. D85 (2012) 105011], which makes close contact to the potentials derived in effective field theory, the $b\bar{b}$ system evolves unitarily under the incessant kicks by the constituents of the surrounding heat bath. In particular thermal fluctuations and the presence of a complex potential in the EFT are naturally related. An intricate interplay between state mixing and thermal excitations emerges as we show how non-thermal initial conditions of Bottomonium states evolve over time. We emphasize that the dynamics of these states gives us access to information beyond what is encoded in the thermal Bottomonium spectral functions. Assumptions underlying our approach and their limitations, as well as the refinements necessary to connect to experimental measurements under more realistic conditions are discussed.