Dead Cone Effect Research Articles

Unveiling the QCD Dead-Cone Effect at the LHC and its Role on Energy Loss in the Quark-Gluon Plasma

Unveiling the QCD Dead-Cone Effect at the LHC and its Role on Energy Loss in the Quark-Gluon Plasma

Mass suppression effect in QCD radiation and hadron angular distribution in jet* *Supported by the National Science Foundation of China (12235008, 12275156, 12275157, 12321005)

The finite mass of the heavy quark suppresses the collimated radiations; this is generally referred to as the dead cone effect. In this paper, we study the distribution of hadron multiplicity over the hadron opening angle with respect to the jet axis for various jet flavors. The corresponding measurement can be the most straightforward and simplest approach to explore the dynamical evolution of the radiations in the corresponding jet, which can expose the mass effect. We also propose a transverse energy-weighted angular distribution, which sheds light on the interplay between perturbative and non-perturbative effects in the radiation. Through Monte-Carlo simulations, our calculations show that the dead cone effect can be clearly observed by finding the ratio between the b and light-quark (inclusive) jets; this is expected to be measured at the LHC in the future.

Dead cone effect in charm and bottom quark jets

The evolution of a heavy quark initiated jet is mainly ruled by gluon bremsstrahlung. As a consequence of the dead-cone effect, this radiation is suppressed in the forward direction at angles smaller than that proportional to the heavy quark mass MQ, i.e. Θ0=MQ/EQ at energy EQ of the primary quark. In this paper, we unveil this effect in charm and bottom quark jets using DELPHI and OPAL data from Z0 boson decays in e+e− annihilation at center of mass energy 91.2 GeV. The analysis of the reconstructed heavy quark fragmentation function in momentum space shows the strong suppression of hadrons at high momenta in such events compared to light quark fragmentation by a factor ≲1/10. The amount of this suppression is well reproduced by perturbative QCD (pQCD) within the Modified Leading Logarithmic Aproximation and the compact scheme of Local Parton Hadron Duality (MLLA-LPHD). As a new result, we obtain an almost perfect agreement between the light quark fragmentation functions expected at W0∝MQ from DELPHI and OPAL data with Pythia8 and shed light on the reasons for the existence of the ultra-soft gluon excess at small momentum fraction in comparison with pQCD predictions.

Unconventional Mechanisms of Heavy Quark Fragmentation

Heavy and light quarks produced in high-pT partonic collisions radiate differently. Heavy quarks regenerate their color field, stripped-off in the hard reaction, much faster than the light ones and radiate a significantly smaller fraction of the initial quark energy. This peculiar feature of heavy-quark jets leads to a specific shape of the fragmentation functions observed in e+e− annihilation. Differently from light flavors, the heavy quark fragmentation function strongly peaks at large fractional momentum z, i.e., the produced heavy–light mesons, B or D, carry the main fraction of the jet momentum. This is a clear evidence of the dead-cone effect, and of a short production time of a heavy–light mesons. Contrary to propagation of a small qq¯ dipole, which survives in the medium due to color transparency, a heavy–light Qq¯ dipole promptly expands to a large size. Such a big dipole has no chance to remain intact in a dense medium produced in relativistic heavy ion collisions. On the other hand, a breakup of such a dipole does not affect much the production rate of Qq¯ mesons, differently from the case of light qq¯ meson production.

Observation of the dead cone effect in charm and bottom quark jets and its QCD explanation

The production of a heavy quark is accompanied by gluon bremsstrahlung which is suppressed at small angles $\Theta\lesssim M_Q/E$ for mass $M_Q$ and high energy $E$ according to perturbative Quantum Chromo Dynamics (QCD) (``dead cone effect''). As particles at small angles typically have large momenta, the heavy quark mass also causes a suppression of high momentum particles. In this paper, we studied this effect in c- and b-quark events using data from Z boson decays in $e^+e^-$ annihilation. The heavy quark fragmentation function for charged particles is reconstructed in the momentum fraction variable $x$ or $\xi=\ln(1/x)$ by removing the decays of the heavy quark hadrons. Indeed, we find an increasing suppression of particles with rising $x$ down to a fraction of $\lesssim 1/10$ for particles with $x\gtrsim0.2$ in b-quark and $x\gtrsim0.4$ in c-quark jets in comparison to light quark fragmentation. The sensitivity to the dead cone effect in the present momentum analysis is considerably increased in comparison to the recently presented angular analysis. This amount of suppression and the differences between c- and b-quark fragmentation are in good quantitative agreement with the expectations based on perturbative QCD within the Modified Leading Logarithmic Approximation (MLLA) in the central kinematic region. The data also support a two parameter description in the MLLA of these phenomena (``Limiting Spectrum''). The sensitivity of these measurements to the heavy quark mass is investigated.

Dead-cone searches in heavy-ion collisions using the jet tree

We explore the possibility of using the dead cone of heavy quarks as a region of the Lund plane where medium-induced gluon radiation can be isolated and characterised. The filling of the dead cone by medium-induced gluons is expected to be the result of the interplay between the minimum angle of such radiation due to transverse momentum broadening and the dead-cone angle. Since the measurement of a fully corrected Lund plane in heavy-ion collisions is currently challenging, we propose to use jet grooming techniques to identify a particular splitting in the jet tree that is both perturbative and sensitive to the dead-cone effect. To that end, we propose a new jet substructure groomer, dubbed Late-$k_t$, that selects the most collinear splitting in a QCD jet above a certain transverse momentum cutoff $k_{t,\rm{cut}}$. The role of $k_{t,\rm{cut}}$ is to guarantee perturbative splittings, while selecting the most collinear splitting enhances the sensitivity to mass effects. As a proof of concept, we study the angular distribution of the splitting tagged by Late-$k_t$ both analytically and with Monte Carlo simulations. First, we derive the logarithmic resummation structure in vacuum and demonstrate its capability to distinguish between inclusive and heavy-flavoured jets. Next, we extend the calculation for in-medium jets and show that medium-induced emissions lead to an enhancement of collinear emissions below the dead cone angle. Numerically, we demonstrate an excellent resilience of Late-$k_t$ against uncorrelated thermal background, thus confirming this observable as a potential candidate to unveil medium dynamics around the dead cone regime.

Direct observation of the dead-cone effect in quantum chromodynamics

In particle collider experiments, elementary particle interactions with large momentum transfer produce quarks and gluons (known as partons) whose evolution is governed by the strong force, as described by the theory of quantum chromodynamics (QCD)1. These partons subsequently emit further partons in a process that can be described as a parton shower2, which culminates in the formation of detectable hadrons. Studying the pattern of the parton shower is one of the key experimental tools for testing QCD. This pattern is expected to depend on the mass of the initiating parton, through a phenomenon known as the dead-cone effect, which predicts a suppression of the gluon spectrum emitted by a heavy quark of mass mQ and energy E, within a cone of angular size mQ/E around the emitter3. Previously, a direct observation of the dead-cone effect in QCD had not been possible, owing to the challenge of reconstructing the cascading quarks and gluons from the experimentally accessible hadrons. We report the direct observation of the QCD dead cone by using new iterative declustering techniques4,5 to reconstruct the parton shower of charm quarks. This result confirms a fundamental feature of QCD. Furthermore, the measurement of a dead-cone angle constitutes a direct experimental observation of the non-zero mass of the charm quark, which is a fundamental constant in the standard model of particle physics.

Heavy quark radiation in the quark\u2013gluon plasma in the Moliere theory: angular distribution of the radiation

We study the effects of adding the Coulomb interactions to the harmonic oscillator (HO) approximation of the heavy parton propagating through the quark–gluon plasma (the extension to QCD of the Molliere theory). We explicitly find the expression for the transverse momentum distribution of the gluon radiation of the heavy quark propagating in the quark gluon plasma in the framework of the Moliere theory, taking into account the BDMPSZ radiation in the HO approximation, and the Coulomb logarithms described by the additional logarithmic terms in the effective potential. We show that these Coulomb logarithms significantly influence the HO distribution, derived in the BDMPSZ works, especially for the small transverse momenta, filling the dead cone, and reducing the dead cone suppression of the heavy quark radiation (dead cone effect). In addition we study the effect of the phase space constraints on the heavy quark energy loss, and argue that taking into account of both the phase space constraints and of the Coulomb gluons reduces the dependence of the heavy quark energy loss on its mass in the HO approximation.

First Direct Observation of the Dead-Cone Effect

We report the first direct measurement of the dead-cone effect at colliders, using iterative jet declustering techniques in pp collisions at s=13TeV. The procedure exposes the splittings of D0 mesons in the jet shower, by iteratively declustering the angular ordered C/A tree. The splitting history of the D0 meson initiated jet is mapped onto the Lund Plane, where appropriate cuts can be made to suppress hadronisation effects. The reported variable is the splitting angle with respect to the D0 meson axis, which is updated after each splitting. Track-based jet finding, along with the low transverse momentum reach for charged tracks of the ALICE detector, allow for an accurate reconstruction of the splitting angle in the phase-space where the dead-cone effect is expected to be largest. The results are compared to those of inclusive jets, where the dead-cone effect is expected to be negligible.

Searching for the dead cone effects with iterative declustering of heavy-flavor jets

We present a new method to expose the dead cone effect at colliders using iterative declustering techniques. Iterative declustering allows to unwind the jet clustering and to access the subjets or branches at different depths of the jet tree. Our method consists on declustering the heavy flavour-tagged jet using Cambridge-Achen algorithm following the branch containing the heavy flavour at each step and registering the kinematics of the complementary untagged prong. The kinematics of the complementary untagged prong fill a Lund map representing the gluon radiation off the heavy flavour quark at each step of the vacuum shower. Using Pythia8 MC, we show that a simple cut on the Lund plane introduced by log($k_{T}$) $> 0$, suppresses hadronisation effects and the angular separation between the jet prongs becomes very sensitive to flavour effects. A clear suppression for heavy flavour jets relative to inclusive jets in the region of splitting angles delimited by the relation $\theta < m_{Q}/E$ is observed, where $m_{Q}$ is the mass of the heavy quark and $E$ is the energy of the radiator or splitting prong.

DREENA-B framework: First predictions of RAA and v2 within dynamical energy loss formalism in evolving QCD medium

Dynamical energy loss formalism allows generating state-of-the-art suppression predictions in finite size QCD medium, employing a sophisticated model of high-p⊥ parton interactions with QGP. We here report a major step of introducing medium evolution in the formalism though 1+1D Bjorken (“B”) expansion, while preserving all complex features of the original dynamical energy loss framework. We use this framework to provide joint RAA and v2 predictions, for the first time within the dynamical energy loss formalism in evolving QCD medium. The predictions are generated for a wide range of high p⊥ observables, i.e. for all types of probes (both light and heavy) and for all centrality regions in both Pb+Pb and Xe+Xe collisions at the LHC. Where experimental data are available, DREENA-B framework leads to a good joint agreement with v2 and RAA data. Such agreement is encouraging, i.e. may lead us closer to resolving v2 puzzle (difficulty of previous models to jointly explain RAA and v2 data), though this still remains to be thoroughly tested by including state-of-the-art medium evolution within DREENA framework. While introducing medium evolution significantly changes v2 predictions, RAA predictions remain robust and moreover in a good agreement with the experimental data; RAA observable is therefore suitable for calibrating parton-medium interaction model, independently from the medium evolution. Finally, for heavy flavor, we observe a strikingly similar signature of the dead-cone effect on both RAA and v2 - we also provide a simple analytical understanding behind this result. Overall, the results presented here indicate that DREENA framework is a reliable tool for QGP tomography.

Complex suppression patterns distinguish between major energy loss effects in Quark–Gluon Plasma

Interactions of high momentum partons with Quark-Gluon Plasma created in relativistic heavy-ion collisions provide an excellent tomography tool for this new form of matter. Recent measurements for charged hadrons and unidentified jets at the LHC show an unexpected flattening of the suppression curves at high momentum, exhibited when either momentum or the collision centrality is changed. Furthermore, a limited data available for B probes indicate a qualitatively different pattern, as nearly the same flattening is exhibited for the curves corresponding to two opposite momentum ranges. We here show that the experimentally measured suppression curves are well reproduced by our theoretical predictions, and that the complex suppression patterns are due to an interplay of collisional, radiative energy loss and the dead-cone effect. Furthermore, for B mesons, we predict that the uniform flattening of the suppression indicated by the limited dataset is in fact valid across the entire span of the momentum ranges, which will be tested by the upcoming experiments. Overall, the study presented here, provides a rare opportunity for pQCD theory to qualitatively distinguish between the major energy loss mechanisms at the same (nonintuitive) dataset.

Exposing the dead cone effect with jet substructure techniques

The dead cone is a well-known effect in gauge theories, where radiation from a charged particle of mass m and energy E is suppressed within an angular size of m/E. This effect is universal as it does not depend on the spin of the particle nor on the nature of the gauge interaction. It is challenging to directly measure the dead cone at colliders, however, since the region of suppressed radiation either is too small to be resolved or is filled by the decay products of the massive particle. In this paper, we propose to use jet substructure techniques to expose the dead cone effect in the strong-force radiation pattern around boosted top quarks at the Large Hadron Collider. Our study shows that with 300/fb of 13-14 TeV collision data, ATLAS and CMS could obtain the first direct evidence of the dead cone effect and test its basic features.

Jet substructures of boosted polarized hadronic top quarks

We study jet substructures of a boosted polarized top quark, which undergoes the hadronic decay $t\to b u\bar d$, in the perturbative QCD framework, focusing on the energy profile and the differential energy profile. These substructures are factorized into the convolution of a hard top-quark decay kernel with a bottom-quark jet function and a $W$-boson jet function, where the latter is further factorized into the convolution of a hard $W$-boson decay kernel with two light-quark jet functions. Computing the hard kernels to leading order in QCD and including the resummation effect in the jet functions, we show that the differential jet energy profile is a useful observable for differentiating the helicity of a boosted hadronic top quark: a right-handed top jet exhibits quick descent of the differential energy profile with the inner test cone radius $r$, which is attributed to the $\mbox{V-A}$ structure of weak interaction and the dead-cone effect associated with the $W$-boson jet. The above helicity differentiation may help to reveal the chiral structure of physics beyond the Standard Model at high energies.

Gluon Radiation off Heavy flavour Jets

It is known that gluon bremsstrahlung emission off heavy flavor jet is suppressed in the forward direction compared to that of light quark due to the mass effect ( ‘ dead cone effect’). Most of the models that address jet quenching generally assume that a jet always travels in straight eikonal path. However, once the eikonal approximation of propagation is called off and jet is allowed to bend, additional gluons pop- up within the so called ‘depopulated’ region deluging the dead cone. This color synchrotron by color charge, once wound in an ambiance of color field, seems to be more physical for better understanding of jet quenching in hot and dense deconfined quark-gluon medium.

Gluon radiation by heavy quarks at intermediate energies and consequences for the mass hierarchy of energy loss

We extend the Gunion Bertsch calculation of gluon radiation in single scattering to the case of finite mass quarks. This case applies to the radiative energy-loss of heavy quarks of intermediate energies propagating in a quark gluon plasma. We discuss more specifically the dead cone effect as well as the mass hierarchy of the collisional and radiative energy loss and provide some predictions for observables sensitive to the mass hierarchy of energy loss in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions.

Charm-energy loss andD-Dcorrelations from a parton shower approach

Measurements of mesons containing charm or bottom quarks at high transverse momentum (P_T) constitute an interesting set of probes for the nature of the interaction of hard partons with a QCD medium as created in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion (A-A) collisions. Not only can D and B mesons to a reasonable accuracy be assumed to represent the hadronization of a b or c quark after passage through the medium, i.e. they explicitly reflect quark-medium interaction, but also their interaction physics is expected to be different from light partons traversing a medium: The quark mass restricts radiation phase space, leading to a reduction of both vacuum and medium induced radiation, a phenomenon known as the 'dead cone effect'. Due to this difference in physics, heavy quark interaction with the medium is usually treated in the leading parton energy loss approximation, whereas the theory of light parton physics has moved to modeling the full medium-modified shower evolution. In this work, an attempt is made to create a more unified description of light parton and heavy quark physics at high P_T by computing charm-medium interactions in terms of the nuclear suppression factor and back-to-back correlations using an in-medium shower evolution Monte Carlo (MC) code that is well tested for light parton physics.

Gluon radiation by heavy quarks at intermediate energies

Employing scalar QCD we study the gluon emission of heavy quarks created by the interaction with light quarks considered as dynamical scattering centers. We develop approximation formulas for the high energy limit and study when the full calculation reaches this high energy limit. For zero quark masses and in the high energy limit our model reproduces the Gunion-Bertsch results. We justify why scalar QCD represents a good approximation to the full QCD approach for the energy loss of heavy quarks. In the regime of accessible phenomenology we observe that the emission at small transverse momentum (dead cone effect) is less suppressed than originally suggested. We also investigate the influence of a finite gluon mass on the discussed results.

Measurement of muon tagged open heavy flavor production in Pb + Pb collisions at 2.76 TeV with ATLAS

Abstract Heavy flavor quarks are an important probe with which to study the hot, dense medium produced in heavy ion collisions. Charm and bottom quarks are produced at a relatively early stage of the collision and are predicted to have a smaller gluon radiation due to the dead cone effect. Semi-leptonic heavy flavor decays can be identified by the presence of a muon and separated from the light meson background using a template fitting method. In this talk, the R CP for heavy flavor muons in Pb + Pb collisions at s N N = 2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC is presented as a function of muon transverse momentum.

Coherence effects and broadening in medium-induced QCD radiation off a massive $ q\bar{q} $ antenna

Studies of medium-induced QCD radiation usually rely on the calculation of single-gluon radiation spectrum off an energetic parton traversing an extended colored medium. Recently, the importance of interference effects between emitters in the medium has been explored. In this work we extend previous studies by calculating the single-gluon coherent spectrum off an antenna consisting of a massive quark-antiquark pair. Interferences dominate the spectrum of soft gluons, which are mainly emitted outside of the cone made by the antenna opening angle, while the antenna results in a superposition of independent emitters above a critical gluon energy scale. We study the interplay between the dead-cone effect and medium-induced jet broadening in both cases of soft and hard gluons and present results on energy loss distributions.