Quarkonium Binding and Entropic Force

A Q-Qbar bound state represents a balance between repulsive kinetic and attractive potential energy. In a hot quark-gluon plasma, the interaction potential experiences medium effects. Color screening modifies the attractive binding force between the quarks, while the increase of entropy with Q-Qbar separation gives rise to a growing repulsion. We study the role of these phenomena for in-medium Q-Qbar binding and dissociation. It is found that the relevant potential for Q-Qbar binding is the free energy F; with increasing Q-Qbar separation, further binding through the internal energy U is compensated by repulsive entropic effects.

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