Open quantum system approach for heavy quark thermalization

Abstract

We treat heavy quark as an open quantum system in the hot medium, and rederive the Stochastic Schrödinger Equation (SSE) from the full Schrödinger equation for both heavy quarks and the medium. We apply the SSE to the dynamical evolutions of heavy quarks (as a system) in the static hot medium (as an environment). Heavy quarks interact with the medium via random scatterings, which exchange the momentum and phase factor randomly between two wave functions of the system and the environment. The exchange of momentum and phase factor results in the transition between different eigenstates of the system. These are included via an external stochastic potential in the Hamiltonian of SSE. Stochastic wave functions of heavy quarks are evolved with the stochastic external potential. The mean wave functions and the corresponding momentum distributions of heavy quarks are obtained after the ensemble average over a large set of stochastic wave functions. We present the thermalization of heavy quarks in the static medium with different coupling strength.

Charmonium dissociation at high baryon chemical potential

“…At the same time, the inner evolutions of the quarkonium are described with the Schrödinger equation. Open quantum system models such as the Lindblad equation [27] and the Stochas- * Electronic address: baoyi.chen@tju.edu.cn tic Schrödinger equation [28,29] are also developed recently which treats quarkonium as an open quantum system with momentum-energy exchange with the thermal medium. Other semiclassical transport models are also developed to study the dissociation and recombination of quarkonium in the hot medium [30][31][32].…”