Mott dissociation of D-mesons at the chiral phase transition and anomalous J/Psi suppression

Abstract

We investigate the in-medium modification of the charmonium breakup processes due to the Mott-effect for D-mesons at the chiral phase transition. A model calculation for the process J/Psi+pi --> D+D^*+ h.c. is presented which demonstrates that threshold effects in the thermal averaged breakup cross section can be explained as a Mott transition where final state quark-antiquark bound states enter the continuum of resonant states at the QCD phase transition. Applications to heavy-ion collisions within a modified Glauber model scenario and the phenomenon of anomalous J/$\psi$ suppression in the CERN NA50 experiment are addressed.