Enhanced J/ψ production in deconfined quark matter

In high energy heavy ion collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven and the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, each central event will contain multiple pairs of heavy quarks. If a region of deconfined quarks and gluons is formed, a mechanism for additional formation of heavy quarkonium bound states will be activated. This is a result of the mobility of heavy quarks in the deconfined region, such that bound states can be formed from a quark and an antiquark that were originally produced in separate incoherent interactions. Model estimates of this effect for J/ψ production at RHIC indicate that significant enhancements are to be expected. Experimental observation of such enhanced production would provide evidence for deconfinement unlikely to be compatible with competing scenarios.