Transport properties and Langevin dynamics of heavy quarks and quarkonia in the Quark Gluon Plasma

Abstract

Quark Gluon Plasma transport coefficients for heavy quarks and quark-antiquark pairs are computed through an extension of the results obtained for a hot QED plasma by describing the heavy-quark propagation in the eikonal approximation and by weighting the gauge field configurations with the Hard Thermal Loop effective action. It is shown that such a model allows to correctly reproduce, at leading logarithmic accuracy, the results obtained by other independent approaches. The results are then inserted into a relativistic Langevin equation allowing to follow the evolution of the heavy-quark momentum spectra. Our numerical findings are also compared with the ones obtained in a strongly-coupled scenario, namely with the transport coefficients predicted (though with some limitations and ambiguities) by the AdS/CFT correspondence.Comment: Minor changes. One figure added. Final version accepted for publication by Nucl. Phys.