B-mesons as essential probes of hot QCD matter

Abstract

This article elucidates the pivotal role of b-mesons and bottomonium states in exploring the existence and properties of hot QCD matter (commonly known as quark-gluon-plasma (QGP) produced within the crucible heavy-ion collision experiments). Owing to the complex and confounding nature of strong interaction force the direct detection of probing the hot QCD matter is not feasible. In light of this, investigating the dynamics of b-quarks and anti-quarks within the hot QCD medium emerges as an invaluable indirect probe. The impact of b-quarks and the mesons spans a spectrum of interesting domains regarding the physics of QCD at finite temperature, encompassing the QCD phase transition, color screening, quarkonia dissociation, heavy quark energy loss and collective flow, anisotropic aspects, and strongly coupled nature of hot QCD medium. These aspects underscore the indispensable nature of B-mesons in the quest to create and explore the complex nature of strong interaction force through the QGP/hot QCD matter. In this context, we mainly focus on works related to transport studies of b-mesons in hot QCD medium, lattice QCD, and effective field theory studies on bottomonium states, and finally, open quantum system frameworks to quarkonia to explore the properties of hot QCD medium in relativistic heavy-ion collision experiments.