Spin-Orbit Interactions and Heavy-Quark Transport in the QGP*

We employ a previously constructed T-matrix approach for heavy-quark (HQ) transport in the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) to compute the effects of spin-orbit interactions between partons. Based on the vacuum Cornell potential, we first confirm that the experimental values of the mass splittings in quarkonium P-wave states are improved by employing a confining potential that is a mixture of vector and scalar potentials rather than a purely scalar one. We then apply the refined potential to calculate the in-medium single-parton spectral functions at finite temperature self-consistently. The temperature corrections to the in-medium potential are constrained by results from thermal lattice-QCD for the HQ free energy and Euclidean correlator ratios of charmonium spectral functions. Finally, we study the in-medium charm quark transport coefficients at different temperatures. It turns out that the mixing effect for confining potential enhances the drag coefficient, A(p), for charm quarks in the QGP over previous calculations with a purely scalar potential, thereby also decreasing the pertinent diffusion coefficients, D_s. Our results thus advance the microscopic description of HQ transport, and are likely to improve the current phenomenology of open heavy-flavor observables at RHIC and the LHC.