K *-charmonium dissociation cross sections and charmonium dissociation rates in hadronic matter

K*-charmonium dissociation reactions in hadronic matter are studied in the Born approximation, in the quark-interchange mechanism, and with a temperature-dependent quark potential. We obtain the temperature dependence of the unpolarized cross sections for the reactions \(K^* J/\psi \to \bar DD_s^ + ,\bar D^* D_s^ + ,\bar DD_s^{* + } \), and \(\bar D^* D_s^{* + } \); \(K^* \chi _c \to \bar DD_s^ + ,\bar D^* D_s^ + ,\bar DD_s^{* + } \), and \(\bar D^* D_s^{* + } \). We use the cross sections for charmonium dissociation in collisions with pions, ρ mesons, kaons, vector kaons, and η mesons to calculate the dissociation rates of charmonium with five types of mesons. Because of the temperature dependence of the meson masses, dissociation cross sections, and meson distribution functions, the charmonium dissociation rates generally increase with increasing temperature and decrease with increasing charmonium momentum from 2.2 GeV/c. We find that the first derivative of the dissociation rate with respect to the charmonium momentum is zero when the charmonium is at rest. While the η + ψ′ and the η + χ c dissociation reactions can be neglected, the J/ψ, ψ′, and χ c dissociations are caused by collisions with pions, ρ mesons, kaons, vector kaons, and η mesons.