Abstract
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 is obtained from the spectral function of the thermal Wilson loop. We confirm the existence of an imaginary part above the critical temperature , which grows as a function of and underscores the importance of collisions with the gluonic environment for the melting of heavy quarkonia in the quark-gluon plasma.
- Received 15 August 2011
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.108.162001
© 2012 American Physical Society