Studying hard probe dynamics in the QGP using hydrodynamic effective field theory

by Andreas Kirchner (Duke University)

Tuesday 28 Jul 2026, 11:00 → 13:00 US/Eastern

The description of heavy quarks inside the QGP medium, especially at low momenta, remains challenging from first principles, due to large coupling strength and gluon occupation numbers. An alternative way to formulate a description in terms of perturbative degrees of freedom is the interaction of the heavy quarks with the collective excitations of the medium in form of phonons. This description is derived as an effective field theory (EFT) and therefore allows for a natural occurring power counting of the allowed interactions. This EFT has already been established in our previous work (arXiv:2510.13942), where we have derived the phonon-heavy quark interactions and calculated their thermal scattering cross section. We use these results to study the heavy quark thermalization process from different aspects, beginning with the calculation of the heavy quark drag coefficient in the medium. We also solve the Boltzmann equation for the heavy quark distribution and demonstrate a wake signal in the phonon distribution.