arXiv subjects

Alexander Rothkopf

Publications and source records attributed to Alexander Rothkopf.

96 records · Page 6Linked to original sources

arXiv2012

Heavy Quarkonium in the Quark Gluon Plasma from Effective Field Theories and Potentials

The measurements of heavy quarkonium suppression at RHIC and LHC urge theory to develop intuitive as well as quantitative methods for the description of $Q\bar{Q}$ melting in the quark-gluon plasma. Here I will present a brief sketch on the effective field theory strategies underlying the definition of the heavy quark static potential and report on two recent advances in the extraction and interpretation of such a potential. On the one side, progress has been made in obtaining its values from lattice QCD, which promises to make possible investigating its real and imaginary part non-perturbatively. On the other side, the existence of an imaginary part emphasizes the dynamical nature of the melting process and invites us to make a direct connection to the framework of open quantum systems.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

Improved Maximum Entropy Method with an Extended Search Space

We report on an improvement to the implementation of the Maximum Entropy Method (MEM). It amounts to departing from the search space obtained through a singular value decomposition (SVD) of the Kernel. Based on the shape of the SVD basis functions we argue that the MEM spectrum for given $N_τ$ data-points $D(τ)$ and prior information $m(ω)$ does not in general lie in this $N_τ$ dimensional singular subspace. Systematically extending the search basis will eventually recover the full search space and the correct extremum. We illustrate this idea through a mock data analysis inspired by actual lattice spectra, to show where our improvement becomes essential for the success of the MEM. To remedy the shortcomings of Bryan's SVD prescription we propose to use the real Fourier basis, which consists of trigonometric functions. Not only does our approach lead to more stable numerical behavior, as the SVD is not required for the determination of the basis functions, but also the resolution of the MEM becomes independent from the position of the reconstructed peaks.

physics.comp-ph↗

arXiv2012

Disentangling the timescales behind the non-perturbative heavy quark potential

The static part of the heavy quark potential has been shown to be closely related to the spectrum of the rectangular Wilson loop. In particular the lowest lying positive frequency peak encodes the late time evolution of the two-body system, characterized by a complex potential. While initial studies assumed a perfect separation of early and late time physics, where a simple Lorentian (Breit-Wigner) shape suffices to describe the spectral peak, we argue that scale decoupling in general is not complete. Thus early time, i.e. non-potential effects, significantly modify the shape of the lowest peak. We derive on general grounds an improved peak distribution that reflects this fact. Application of the improved fit to non-perturbative lattice QCD spectra now yields a potential that is compatible with a transition to a deconfined screening plasma.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

Complex Heavy-Quark Potential at Finite Temperature from Lattice QCD

We calculate for the first time the complex potential between a heavy quark and antiquark at finite temperature across the deconfinement transition in lattice QCD. The real and imaginary part of the potential at each separation distance $r$ is obtained from the spectral function of the thermal Wilson loop. We confirm the existence of an imaginary part above the critical temperature $T_C$, which grows as a function of $r$ and underscores the importance of collisions with the gluonic environment for the melting of heavy quarkonia in the quark-gluon-plasma.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2012

Stochastic potential and quantum decoherence of heavy quarkonium in the quark-gluon plasma

We propose an open quantum systems approach to the physics of heavy quarkonia in a thermal medium, based on stochastic quantum evolution. This description emphasizes the importance of collisions with the environment and focuses on the concept of spatial decoherence of the heavy quarkonium wave function. It is shown how to determine the parameters of the dynamical evolution, i.e. the real potential and the noise strength, from a comparison with quantities to be obtained from lattice QCD. Furthermore the imaginary part of the lattice QCD heavy quark potential is found to be naturally related to the strength of the noise correlations. We discuss the time evolution of $Q\bar{Q}$ analytically in a limiting scenario for the spatial decoherence and provide a qualitative 1-dimensional numerical simulation of the real-time dynamics.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2006

A close look into the carbon disk at the core of the planetary nebula CPD-568032

We present high spatial resolution observations of the dusty core of the Planetary Nebula with Wolf-Rayet central star CPD-568032. These observations were taken with the mid-infrared interferometer VLTI/MIDI in imaging mode providing a typical 300 mas resolution and in interferometric mode using UT2-UT3 47m baseline providing a typical spatial resolution of 20 mas. The visible HST images exhibit a complex multilobal geometry dominated by faint lobes. The farthest structures are located at 7" from the star. The mid-IR environment of CPD-568032 is dominated by a compact source, barely resolved by a single UT telescope in a 8.7 micron filter. The infrared core is almost fully resolved with the three 40-45m projected baselines ranging from -5 to 51 degree but smooth oscillating fringes at low level have been detected in spectrally dispersed visibilities. This clear signal is interpreted in terms of a ring structure which would define the bright inner rim of the equatorial disk. Geometric models allowed us to derive the main geometrical parameters of the disk. For instance, a reasonably good fit is reached with an achromatic and elliptical truncated Gaussian with a radius of 97+/-11 AU, an inclination of 28+/-7 degree and a PA for the major axis at 345+/-7 degree. Furthermore, we performed some radiative transfer modeling aimed at further constraining the geometry and mass content of the disk, by taking into account the MIDI dispersed visibilities, spectra, and the large aperture SED of the source. These models show that the disk is mostly optically thin in the N band and highly flared.

astro-ph↗