J/ψenhancement by quark-gluon-plasma formation

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Abstract
A new mechanism for producing J/ψ’s in a quark-gluon plasma is explored. A cc¯ pair created in the hard part of a hadronic collision need not be initially formed as a color singlet to result in a charmonium state if a plasma is also present. Instead, a color-octet pair can subsequently scatter off of the plasma to lose its color. It is shown that if a hot plasma is formed in a relativistic heavy-ion collider, then a substantial enhancement of the J/ψ production rate might be expected from this mechanism. Thus this production mechanism acts to counteract the decrease in cross section arising from Debye screening of the color-binding force in the plasma.

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