Jet quenching and heavy quarks

Abstract

Jet quenching and more generally physics at high transverse momentum PT scales is a cornerstone of the heavy-ion physics program at both RHIC and LHC. In this work, the current understanding of jet quenching in terms of a QCD shower evolution being modified by the surrounding medium is reviewed along with the evidence for this picture from light parton high PT observables. Conceptually, the same QCD shower description should also be relevant for heavy quarks, but with several important modifications introduced by the quark masses. Thus especially in the limit of small jet energy over quark mass Ejet/mq, the relevant physics may be rather different from light quark jets, and several attempts to explain the observed phenomenology of heavy quarks at high PT are discussed here.