The low energy physics of quarkonium suppression in heavy ion collisions

Abstract

In the late stage of relativistic heavy ion collisions there is a hadron gas phase, where particles interact at energies of the order of the temperature, i.e., ≃ 100 − 150 MeV. We discuss heavy quarkonium production and dissociation in this hot hadron gas. We review the theory giving special emphasis to our recent works on J/ψ and ϒ suppression in interactions with pions.