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Spin-Momentum Decoupling in Quarkonium Hadronization: Polarization Quenching via Environment-Induced Decoherence in Jets

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2026-04-16 v2 High Energy Physics - Experiment

Abstract

The suppression of heavy quarkonium polarization at high transverse momentum (pTp_T) remains a persistent puzzle in quantum chromodynamics (QCD). We propose an effective open-quantum-system paradigm demonstrating that the heavy quark spin state and its macroscopic momentum effectively decouple during hadronization. By retaining the short-distance non-relativistic QCD (NRQCD) perturbative calculations as a kinematic baseline, we argue that the immense kinematic inertia at high pTp_T parametrically preserves the power-law momentum spectrum. Concurrently, the intense, stochastic chromo-electric background within a fragmenting jet acts as a dynamic decoherence environment. Using a horizon-inspired picture as a physically motivated parametrization, we derive an effective temperature Teff(z)ln(1/z)T_{\text{eff}}(z) \propto \sqrt{\ln(1/z)} driven by the multiplicity of soft accompanying partons. By incorporating this effective temperature into a Lindblad dissipation framework, we predict a simultaneous quenching of the polar and azimuthal anisotropies towards a maximally mixed state. Crucially, the recently observed ``soft'' fragmentation of Υ(nS)\Upsilon(nS) by the CMS Collaboration provides a highly consistent phase-space weighting required in our framework to explain the historical inclusive unpolarized anomaly. Identifying the fragmentation fraction z=pTQ/pTjetz=p_T^{\mathcal{Q}}/p_T^{\text{jet}} as the critical control variable, we propose that a key testable prediction is the simultaneous zz-dependent suppression of λθ\lambda_\theta, λϕ\lambda_\phi, and λ~\tilde{\lambda} in fixed quarkonium and jet pTp_T bins.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2604.11847,
  title  = {Spin-Momentum Decoupling in Quarkonium Hadronization: Polarization Quenching via Environment-Induced Decoherence in Jets},
  author = {Yi Yang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.11847},
  year   = {2026}
}

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