Abstract. The meassurements of charmonium states production via their decay on lepton pairs by the MPD experiment on the NICA collider at the energies √ sNN = 4-11 GeV per nucleon could provide important data for solving the problem of anomalous J/ψ suppression first observed in central Pb-Pb collisions by the NA50 Collaboration at 158 GeV/nucleon. The anomalous J/ψ suppression could be due to the formation of the QGP in the central heavy-ion collisions. However, this effect could be also interpreted as the result of the comover interactions in nuclear matter. The recent experiments at the SPS, at the RHIC, and the LHC reviewed in this article indicate a more complicated picture of the J/ψ production including the recombination, medium effects, parton shadowing, and the coherent energy loss mechanism. A more simple production mechanism could be expected at low colliding energies. However, no data were obtained at energies below √ sNN = 17 GeV for heavy-ion collisions. After the short review of the whole set of the data of charmonium states observation the estimation of the production rate for the MPD/NICA is made.
Charmonium production at the CERN SPSThe measurement of charmonium states production via their decay on lepton pairs is a useful tool for the investigation of the properties of hot and dense matter created in heavy-ion collisions. The existence of the QuarkGluon Plasma (QGP) is predicted by lattice QCD at high temperature and large energy density. The dissociation of heavy-quark resonances by color screening in a deconfined medium was suggested by Matsui and Satz as a possible signal of the Quark-Gluon Plasma formation in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions [1].Charmonium production has been previously studied at the CERN SPS by NA3 The NA60 results in p-A collisions at 400 GeV confirm the NA50 values of absorption cross section at the same energy. On the other hand, the NA60 158 GeV p-A data give higher values of absorption. The energy dependence of the absorption cross section was observed. However, the older NA3 J/ψ results at 200 GeV [2] give the values of absorption cross section similar to those obtained at the higher energy. This difference has not yet been satisfactorily explained. Therefore, it is important to measure the charmonium production cross sections in different energy domains in p-p and p-A collisions to investigate the energy dependence of cold nuclear matter effects. The cold nuclear matter effect (CNM) in the suppression of the J/ψ production includes not only nuclear absorption, but also the shadowing effect, i.e. the modification of the parton distribution function in nuclear matter compared to the free nucleon. If shadowing is taken into account, the amount of the anomalous J/ψ suppression is reduced. Also, it is necessary to consider the energy loss of partons in nuclear matter. The charmonium can also interact with surrounding comovers and lose energy or even break up.For In-In collisions at 158 GeV per nucleon after accounting for the effects of cold nuclear matter the ad...