Excitation of Color Degrees of Freedom of Nuclear Matter and $J/ψ$ Suppression

Abstract

In high energy nuclear collisions, the conventional Glauber model is commonly used to evaluate the contribution to $J/ψ$ suppression originating from the inelastic interaction with colorless bound nucleons. This requires an effective value for the $J/ψ$-nucleon absorption cross section which is larger than theoretically expected. On the other hand, multiple nucleon-nucleon collisions mediated by color exchange interactions, excite their color degrees of freedom. We investigate the importance of this effect and find that these excited states provide a larger cross section for $J/ψ$ absorption. We conclude that the related corrections are important to explain the effective value extrapolated from experiment.

21 pages Latex, 8 postscript figures