Heavy quarks (charm and bottoms) are one of the few probes which are
sensitive to the degrees of freedom of a Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP), which cannot
be revealed by lattice gauge calculations in equilibrium. Due to the rapid
expansion of the QGP energetic heavy quarks do not come to an equilibrium with
the QGP. Their energy loss during the propagation through the QGP medium
depends strongly on the modelling of the interaction of the heavy quarks with
the QGP quarks and gluons, i.e. on the assuption of the degrees of freedom of
the plasma. Here we compare the results of different models, the pQCD based
Monte-Carlo (MC@sHQ), the Dynamical Quasi Particle Model (DQPM) and the
effective mass approach, for the drag force in a thermalized QGP and discuss
the sensitivity of heavy quark energy loss on the properties of the QGP as well
as on non-equilibrium dynamicsComment: proceedings symposion "New Horizons" Makutsi, South Africa, Nov 201