We compute, to next-to-leading order in perturbation theory, the rate of energy loss suffered by a heavy quark moving nonrelativistically in the quark-gluon plasma. This quantity is essentially a measure of the scattering rates of this quark against plasma constituents, and of their efficiency in slowing it down. The next-to-leading order correction is sensitive to the physics of overlapping scatterings, as well as to the self-interactions of gauge fields with small momenta (of order the electric screening scale). We find the next-to-leading order correction to be remarkably large, suggesting that the perturbative series is unreliable unless the coupling constant of the theory assumes unrealistically small values.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.112385 |
| Date | January 2007 |
| Creators | Caron Huot, Simon, 1984- |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (Department of Physics.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 002712135, proquestno: AAIMR51075, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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