Polymer chains and baryons in a strongly coupled quark-gluon plasma

Recently there was a significant change of views on physical properties and underlying dynamics of quark-gluon plasma at T = 170-350 MeV, produced in heavy ion collisions at RHIC. Instead of being a gas of q, g quasiparticles, a near-perfect liquid is observed. Also, precisely in this temperature interval, the interaction deduced from lattice studies is strong enough to support multiple binary bound states. This work is the first variational study of multibody bound states. We will consider: (i) "polymer chains" of the type (q) over bar gg(...)gq; (ii) baryons (qqq); (iii) closed (3-)chains of gluons (ggg). We found that chains (i) form in exactly the same T range as binary states, with the same binding per bond. The binding and T-range for diquarks, baryons and closed 3-chains are also established. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.