https://doi.org/10.1140/epjs/s11734-024-01123-4
Review
B-mesons as essential probes of hot QCD matter
1
Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, 382355, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India
2
School of Physical Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Goa, 403401, Ponda, Goa, India
Received:
5
February
2024
Accepted:
15
February
2024
Published online:
26
February
2024
This article elucidates the pivotal role of b-mesons and bottomonium states in exploring the existence and properties of hot QCD matter (commonly known as quark-gluon-plasma (QGP) produced within the crucible heavy-ion collision experiments). Owing to the complex and confounding nature of strong interaction force the direct detection of probing the hot QCD matter is not feasible. In light of this, investigating the dynamics of b-quarks and anti-quarks within the hot QCD medium emerges as an invaluable indirect probe. The impact of b-quarks and the mesons spans a spectrum of interesting domains regarding the physics of QCD at finite temperature, encompassing the QCD phase transition, color screening, quarkonia dissociation, heavy quark energy loss and collective flow, anisotropic aspects, and strongly coupled nature of hot QCD medium. These aspects underscore the indispensable nature of B-mesons in the quest to create and explore the complex nature of strong interaction force through the QGP/hot QCD matter. In this context, we mainly focus on works related to transport studies of b-mesons in hot QCD medium, lattice QCD, and effective field theory studies on bottomonium states, and finally, open quantum system frameworks to quarkonia to explore the properties of hot QCD medium in relativistic heavy-ion collision experiments.
Copyright comment Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to EDP Sciences, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2024. Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.