Polymer Chains and Baryons in a Strongly Coupled Quark-Gluon Plasma

Abstract

Recently there was a significant change of views on physical properties and underlying dynamics of Quark-Gluon Plasma at $T=170-350 MeV$, produced in heavy ion collisions at RHIC. Instead of being a gas of $q,g$ quasiparticles, a near-perfect liquid is observed. Also, precisely in this temperature interval, the interaction deduced from lattice studies is strong enough to support multiple binary bound states. This work is the first variational study of {\em multibody} bound states. We will consider: (i) ``polymer chains'' of the type $\bar q g g ..g q$; (ii) baryons $(qqq)$; (iii) closed (3-)chains of gluons $(ggg)$. We found that chains (i) form in exactly the same $T$ range as binary states, with the same binding {\em per bond}. The binding and $T$-range for diquarks, baryons and closed 3-chains are also established. We point out that the presence of chains, or possibly even a chain network, may drastically change the transport properties of matter, such as charm diffusion or jet energy loss. We further suggest that it seems to exist only for $T=(1-1.5)T_c$ and thus there may be a ``latent period'' for charm/jet quenching in RHIC collisions, while matter cools down to such $T$.