Mateusz Cierniak
Multi-quark clusters and their Mott dissociation in hot, dense matter
We describe multiquark clusters in quark matter within a Beth-Uhlenbeck approach in a background gluon field that is coupled to the underlying chiral quark dynamics using the Polyakov-gauge and an effective potential for the traced Polyakov-loop. A higher multiquark cluster of size n is described as a binary composite of smaller subclusters n_1 and n_2 (n_1+n_2=n) with a bound state and scattering state spectrum. For the corresponding cluster-cluster phase shifts we use two simple ansätze that capture the Mott dissociation of clusters as a function of temperature and chemical potential. We compare the simple "step-up-step-down" model that ignores continuum correlations with an improved model contains them in a generic form. In order to explain the model, we restrict ourselves here to the cases where n= 1, 2, ..., 6. A striking result is the suppression of the abundance of colored multiquark clusters at low temperatures by the coupling to the Polyakov loop. This is understood in close analogy to the suppression of quark distributions by the same mechanism and we derive here the corresponding Polyakov-loop generalized distribution functions of n-quark clusters.