Eur. Phys. J. A (2017) 53: 116
https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/i2017-12299-0

Regular Article - Theoretical Physics

Drag and diffusion of heavy quarks in a hot and anisotropic QCD medium

Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, 247667, Roorkee, India

^* e-mail: prasu111@gmail.com

Received: 18 December 2016
Accepted: 28 April 2017
Published online: 6 June 2017

Abstract

The propagation of heavy quarks (HQs) in a medium was quite often modeled by the Fokker-Planck (FP) equation. Since the transport coefficients, related to drag and diffusion processes, are the main ingredients in the FP equation, the evolution of HQs is thus effectively controlled by them. At the initial stage of the relativistic heavy-ion collisions, asymptotic weak-coupling causes the free-streaming motions of partons in the beam direction and the expansions in transverse directions are almost frozen, hence an anisotropy in the momentum space sets in. Since HQs are too produced in the same time, the study of the effect of momentum anisotropy on the drag and diffusion coefficients becomes highly desirable. In this article we have thus studied the drag and diffusion of HQs in the anisotropic medium and found that the presence of the anisotropy reduces both drag and diffusion coefficients. In addition, the anisotropy introduces an angular dependence to both the drag and diffusion coefficients, as a result both coefficients get more inflated when the partons are moving transversely to the direction of anisotropy than when moving parallel to the direction of anisotropy.