Progress Towards Understanding Quarkonia at PHENIX
Abstract
Quarkonia (J/psi, psi', chiC, Upsilon) production provides a sensitive probe of gluon distributions and their modification in nuclei; and is a leading probe of the hot-dense (deconfined) matter created in high-energy collisions of heavy ions. We will discuss the physics of quarkonia production in the context of recent p+p measurements at PHENIX. We next discuss Cold-Nuclear Matter (CNM) effects as seen in our measurements in d+Au collisions - both for intrinsic physics such as gluon saturation and final-state dissociation, and as a baseline for studies in nucleus-nucleus collisions. Then we review the latest nucleus-nucleus results in the light of the expected CNM effects, and discuss two leading scenarios for the observed suppression patterns. Finally we show the latest data from PHENIX, including new d+Au data from the 2007-2008 run; and then look into the future.