Non-Gaussian Heavy-Quark Transport in Non-Abelian Plasmas:

Relativistic heavy-quark transport in a quark-gluon plasma departs from standard Gaussian diffusion to enforce thermal equilibrium in the presence of velocity-dependent fluctuation-dissipation breakdown. The manuscript grounds this behavior in a duality between thermal gauge field theory and a discrete substrate of localized solenoidal vortex dipoles: Two-Component Transport Dynamics: Distant deflections from screened vortex dipoles average out into continuous Gaussian diffusion, while direct traversals through discrete vortex cores function as an intermittent jump process, generating asymmetric exponential momentum-transfer tails. Non-Hamiltonian Dissipation: Physical medium damping and topological vortex reconnections cause phase-space contraction, breaking time-reversal symmetry and explaining why the classical Einstein relation fails at finite velocities. Coupling Scales and Core Contraction: Increasing plasma temperature contracts the physical radius of the vortex cores through the running of the strong interaction, while the electromagnetic fine-structure coupling shifts negligibly, maintaining the stability of the substrate against electromagnetic fluctuations. Resolution of the Heavy-Flavor Puzzle: The combination of soft diffusion and hard core deflections reproduces the slow spatial diffusion rates calculated in lattice QCD while simultaneously generating the strong energy loss and large elliptic flow observed in experimental heavy-ion collisions.