Jets in heavy ion collisions at the LHC

Abstract

In this document I present a brief review of the concepts of jet physics employed in heavy ion physics. Fast partons originating from scatterings with large momentum transfer are produced at very short time-scales and subsequently propagate through the strongly interacting medium produced in the collisions of heavy nuclei. They feature the only experimental handle available to directly study the interaction of a well defined probe and the medium. Consequently they are ideally suited to investigate the nature of the medium produced in these collisions and the mechanism of interaction between the medium and the partons. The experimental methods necessary to reconstruct jets originating from fragmenting partons in the environment of high particle multiplicity heavy ion collisions will be discussed. Physics observables suited to investigate the parton medium interaction will be introduced and a summary of recent results on jet physics in heavy ion collisions is presented.