PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

We present results on heavy quark free energies in 2-flavour QCD. The temperature dependence of the interaction between static quark anti-quark pairs will be analyzed in terms of temperature dependent screening radii, which give a first estimate on the medium modification of (heavy quark) bound states in the quark gluon plasma. Comparing those radii to the (zero temperature) mean squared charge radii of cha rmonium states indicates that the $J/\psi$ may survive the phase transition as a bound state, while $\chi_c$ and $\psi'$ are expected to show significant thermal modifications at temperatures close to the transition. Furthermore we will analyze the relation between heavy quark free energies, entropy contributions and internal energy and discuss their relation to potential models used to analyze the melting of heavy quark bound states above the deconfinement temperature. Results of different groups and various potential models for bound states in the deconfined phase of QCD are compared.