Nuclear Matter Effects on Jet Production at Electron-Ion Colliders.

Hai Tao Li,Ivan Vitev

doi:10.1103/physrevlett.126.252001

Abstract

Jet production and jet substructure in reactions with nuclei at future electron-ion colliders will play a preeminent role in the exploration of nuclear structure and the evolution of parton showers in strongly interacting matter. In the framework of soft-collinear effective theory, generalized to include in-medium interactions, we present the first theoretical study of inclusive jet cross sections and the jet charge at the electron-ion collider. Predictions for the modification of these observables in electron-gold relative to electron-proton collisions reveal how the flexible center-of-mass energies and kinematic coverage at this new facility can be used to enhance the signal and maximize the impact of the electron-nucleus program. Importantly, we demonstrate theoretically how to disentangle the effects from nuclear parton distribution functions and the ones that arise from strong final-state interactions between the jet and the nuclear medium.

Highlights

Introduction.—In the past decade, jets have emerged as premier diagnostics of the properties of hot nuclear matter created in heavy-ion collisions
In the framework of soft-collinear effective theory, generalized to include in-medium interactions, we present the first theoretical study of inclusive jet cross sections and the jet charge at the electron-ion collider
We demonstrate theoretically how to disentangle the effects from nuclear parton distribution functions and the ones that arise from strong final-state interactions between the jet and the nuclear medium

Summary

Published by the American Physical Society

Can be found in Refs. [28,29] and was derived in the framework the soft-collinear effective theory (SCET) [30,31,32]. To account for final-state interactions, we make use of the medium-induced splitting kernels derived in the framework of SCETG [33,42] and verified using a light cone wave function approach with DIS applications in mind [43,44]. These splitting kernels capture the medium effects on the full collinear shower dynamics. For each jet flavor the average jet charge only depends on one nonperturbative parameter D Qq ðκÞ, which is obtained from PYTHIA [48] simulations, and the initial scale for the vacuum fragmentation function is set to 1 GeV. We use the same nonperturbative parameter D Qq ðκÞ for different jet radii R

Nuclear matter effects on the jet charge were studied in

Jmq ed

Findings

Final only