Charmonium production from hot hadronic matter

Charmonium production from D (D) over bar annihilation in the hadron gas fo rmed in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions is studied. With initial co nditions taken from the HIJING parton model, we have estimated the number o f J/psi produced from an expanding hadron gas, using the J/psi absorption a nd production cross sections obtained from either an effective Lagrangian o r the quark-exchange model. We find that J/psi production is negligible in heavy-ion collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) but may be important at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), where more charm mesons ar e produced. Similar results are obtained for psi' production from the hadro n gas at RHIC and LHC. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.