Eur. Phys. J. C (2006) 48: 207-213
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s2006-02613-8

Theoretical Physics

J/ψ gluonic dissociation revisited: III. Effects of transverse hydrodynamic flow

¹ Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, 247 667, India
² Department of Physics, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, 221 005, India

^* e-mail: binoyfph@iitr.ernet.in

Received: 9 January 2006
Revised: 11 May 2006
Published online: 16 August 2006

Abstract

In a recent paper [B.K. Patra, V.J. Menon, Eur. Phys. J. C 44, 567 (2005)] we developed a very general formulation to take into account explicitly the effects of the hydrodynamic flow profile on the gluonic breakup of J/ψs produced in an equilibrating quark–gluon plasma. Here we apply that formulation to the case when the medium is undergoing a cylindrically symmetric transverse expansion starting from RHIC or LHC initial conditions. Our algebraic and numerical estimates demonstrate that the transverse expansion causes enhancement of the local gluon number density n_g, affects the p_T-dependence of the average dissociation rate through a partial-wave interference mechanism and makes the survival probability S(p_T) to change with p_T very slowly. Compared to the previous case of a longitudinal expansion the new graph of S(p_T) is pushed up at LHC but develops a rich structure at RHIC, due to a competition between the transverse catch-up time and the plasma lifetime.