Temperature dependence of the static quark diffusion coefficient

Abstract

The energy loss pattern of a low momentum heavy quark in a deconfined quark-gluon plasma can be understood in terms of a Langevin description. In thermal equilibrium, the motion can then be parametrized in terms of a single heavy quark momentum diffusion coefficient kappa, which needs to be determined nonperturbatively. In this work, we study the temperature dependence of kappa for a static quark in a gluonic plasma, with a particular emphasis on the temperature range of interest for heavy ion collision experiments.