In-medium modifications of open and hidden strange-charm mesons from spatial correlation functions

Abstract

We calculate spatial correlation functions of in-medium mesons consisting of strange--anti-strange, strange--anti-charm and charm--anti-charm quarks in (2+1)-flavor lattice QCD using the highly improved staggered quark action. A comparative study of the in-medium modifications of mesons with different flavor contents is performed. We observe significant in-medium modifications for the $\phi$ and $D_s$ meson channels already at temperatures around the chiral crossover region. On the other hand, for the $J/\psi$ and $\eta_c$ meson channels in-medium modifications remain relatively small around the chiral crossover region and become significant only above 1.3 times the chiral crossover temperature.