Quarkonium at STAR

The STAR detector is capable of reconstruction the J/{psi} meson in its dielectron decay channel, along with continuum dielectrons from heavy quark decay. The limitation is not instrumental--the ability of the STAR detector to identify electrons--rather, the primary limitation is yield. We expect to reconstruct of order 10,000 events per year in the bin of highest centrality, with perhaps ten times that many integrated over all bins of centrality. This is enough for a rather detailed study of J/{psi} production. The yields for {psi}{prime} and the high p{sub T} {chi} mesons which are in a low enough background region of phase space to permit reconstruction are too small for precision measurements. The only parent of the J/{psi} with a large enough yield for clear observation is the b quark. Even limited to just the J/{psi}, there is a rich physics program available to STAR: the yield provides information on the gluon flux as well as color screening, especially when compared to the open charm and b {r_arrow} J/{psi}X yields. The p{sub T} distribution measures energy loss in a nuclear medium, either by comparison with pp data or across different bins in centrality. The STAR quarkonium program should provide several unique windows into the physics of heavy ion collisions at RHIC