Heavy quark diffusion in a Polyakov loop plasma

Abstract: We calculate the transport coefficients, drag and momentum diffusion, of a heavy quark in a thermalized plasma of light quarks in the background of Polyakov loop. Quark thermal mass and the gluon Debye mass are calculated in a non-trivial Polyakov loop background. The constituent quark masses and the Polyakov loop is estimated within a Polyakov loop quark meson (PQM) model. The relevant scattering amplitudes for heavy quark and light partons in the background of Polyakov loop has been estimated within the matrix model. We have also compared the results with the Polyakov loop parameter estimated from lattice QCD simulations. We have studied the temperature and momentum dependence of heavy quark drag and diffusion coefficients. It is observed that the temperature dependence of the drag coefficient is quite weak which may play a key role to understand heavy quark observables at RHIC and LHC energies.