Parton Energy Loss Research Articles

Medium modification of γ-jet fragmentation functions in Pb+Pb collisions at LHC

Coupled linear Boltzmann transport and hydrodynamic (CoLBT-hydro) model has been developed for simultaneous simulations of jet propagation and jet-induced medium excitation in heavy-ion collisions. Within this coupled approach, the final reconstructed jets in heavy-ion collisions include not only hadrons from the hadronization of medium modified jet shower partons from the linear Boltzmann transport (LBT) but also hadrons from the freeze-out of the jet-induced medium excitation in the hydrodynamic evolution of the bulk medium. Using the CoLBT-hydro model, we study medium modification of the fragmentation functions of γ-triggered jets in high-energy heavy-ion collisions at the Large Hadron Collider. The CoLBT-hydro model is shown to describe the experimental data not only on the suppression of leading hadrons within the jet cone at large momentum fraction zγ=pTh/pTγ relative to the transverse momentum of the trigger photon due to parton energy loss but also the enhancement of soft hadrons at small zγ and zjet=pTh/pTjet due to jet-induced medium excitation. There is no suppression of the fragmentation function, however, at large momentum fraction zjet relative to the transverse momentum of the reconstructed jet due to trigger bias and medium modification of quark to gluon jet fraction. For jets whose final transverse momenta are comparable to or larger than that of the trigger photon, the trigger bias can lead to enhancement of the jet fragmentation function at large zjet.

The global geometrical property of jet events in high-energy nuclear collisions

We present the first theoretical study of medium modifications of the global geometrical pattern, i.e., transverse sphericity (S_{perp }) distribution of jet events with parton energy loss in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. In our investigation, POWHEG + PYTHIA is employed to make an accurate description of transverse sphericity in the p + p baseline, which combines the next-to-leading order (NLO) pQCD calculations with the matched parton shower (PS). The Linear Boltzmann Transport (LBT) model of the parton energy loss is implemented to simulate the in-medium evolution of jets. We calculate the event normalized transverse sphericity distribution in central Pb + Pb collisions at the LHC, and give its medium modifications. An enhancement of transverse sphericity distribution at small S_{perp } region but a suppression at large S_{perp } region are observed in A + A collisions as compared to their p + p references, which indicates that in overall the geometry of jet events in Pb + Pb becomes more pencil-like. We demonstrate that for events with 2 jets in the final-state of heavy-ion collisions, the jet quenching makes the geometry more sphere-like with medium-induced gluon radiation. However, for events with ge 3 jets, parton energy loss in the QCD medium leads to the events more pencil-like due to jet number reduction, where less energetic jets may lose their energies and then fall off the jet selection kinematic cut. These two effects offset each other and in the end result in more jetty events in heavy-ion collisions relative to that in p + p.

Research on Jet Quenching with Isolated-Photon+Jet correlation in Pb-Pb and p-p collisions at collision energy 5.02 TeV

This paper is dedicated on the phenomenon of jet quenching and its quantitative description at . Data from collision events with an isolated leading photon, , associate jets with , are plotted as a function of centrality; result is then matched to reference function in p-p events at the same level of energy to infer some model for parton energy loss in PbPb collisions. The main motivation for this paper is to overcome the difficulties of comparing the theoretical models and experimental data, which are linked with a hypothetical equation for energy loss.

Nonperturbative effects on radiative energy loss of heavy quarks

The radiative energy loss of fast partons traveling through the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) is commonly studied within perturbative QCD (pQCD). Nonperturbative (NP) effects, which are expected to become important near the critical temperature, have been much less investigated. Here, we utilize a recently developed T -matrix approach to incorporate NP effects for gluon emission off heavy quarks propagating through the QGP. We set up four cases that contain, starting from a Born diagram calculation with color- Coulomb interaction, an increasing level of NP components, by subsequently including (remnants of ) confining interactions, resummation in the heavy-light scattering amplitude, and off-shell spectral functions for both heavy and light partons. For each case we compute the power spectra of the emitted gluons, heavy-quark transport coefficients (drag and transverse-momentum broadening, hat{q} ), and the path-length dependent energy loss within a “QGP brick” at fixed temperature. Investigating the differences in these quantities between the four cases illustrates how NP mechanisms affect gluon radiation processes. While the baseline perturbative processes experience a strong suppression of soft radiation due to thermal masses of the emitted gluons, confining interactions, ladder resummations and broad spectral functions (re-)generate a large enhancement toward low momenta and low temperatures. For example, for a 10 GeV charm quark at 200 MeV temperature, they enhance the transport coefficients by up to a factor of 10, while the results smoothly converge to perturbative results at sufficiently hard scales.

Measurement of away-side broadening with self-subtraction of flow in Au+Au collisions at GeV * * This work was supported in part by the Office of Nuclear Physics within the U.S. DOE Office of Science, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, National Natural Science Foundation of China, Chinese Academy of Science, the

High transverse momentum ( ) particle production is suppressed owing to the parton (jet) energy loss in the hot dense medium created in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. Redistribution of energy at low-to-modest has been difficult to measure, owing to large anisotropic backgrounds. We report a data-driven method for background evaluation and subtraction, exploiting the away-side pseudorapidity gaps, to measure the jetlike correlation shape in Au+Au collisions at GeV in the STAR experiment. The correlation shapes, for trigger particles and various associated particle ranges within , are consistent with Gaussians, and their widths increase with centrality. The results indicate jet broadening in the medium created in central heavy-ion collisions.

Medium-induced cascade in expanding media

Detailed insight into the interplay between parton energy loss and the way deconfined medium created in heavy-ion collisions expands is of great importance for improving the understanding of the jet quenching phenomenon. In this paper we study the impact of the expansion of deconfined medium on the single-gluon emission spectrum, its resummation and the jet suppression factor (QAA) within the BDMPS-Z formalism. We calculate these quantities for three types of expansion scenarios, namely static, exponentially decaying and Bjorken expanding media. The distribution of medium-induced gluons is calculated using an evolution equation with splitting kernels derived from the gluon emission spectra. A universal behavior of splitting kernels is derived in the regime of soft gluon emissions when evaluated at a common effective evolution time τeff. Novel scaling features of the resulting gluon distribution and jet QAA are discussed. For realistic spectra valid beyond the soft-gluon emission limit, where the results are obtained by a numerical solution of the evolution equation, these features are partially replaced by a scaling expected from considering an averaged jet quenching parameter along the trajectory of propagation. Further we show that differences arising from different types of the medium expansion can be to a large extent scaled out by appropriate choice of the quenching parameter. Sizable differences among the values of the quenching parameter for different types of medium expansion point to the importance of the medium expansion for precise modeling of the jet quenching phenomenon.

Monte-Carlo simulation of the 1<sup>st</sup> order hadron-QGP phase transition in heavy ion collisions using a parton model

Quark gluon plasma (QGP) is a special state of nuclear matter where quarks and gluons behave like free particles. Recently, a number of investigations of this state with high temperature and/or density have been conducted using collisions of relativistic and ultra-relativistic heavy nuclei. It is accepted that depending on the temperature and density, 1st or the 2nd order phase transitions take place in hadron matter during the formation of QGP. Herein, we have modeled heavy ion collisions using a HIJING Monte-Carlo generator, taking into account the description of the 1st order phase transition as a probabilistic process. We analyzed the behavior of the fluctuations of the total (N = N+ – N–) and resultant (Q = N+ – N–) electric charges of the system. Different phases were introduced using the BDMPS (Baier – Dokshitzer – Mueller – Piegne – Schiff) model of parton energy loss during crossing through a dense nuclear medium.

The study of the incoming parton energy loss effect on the NLO nuclear Drell–Yan ratios

At a next-to-leading order (NLO) calculation, the initial-state energy loss of the quark is investigated by means of the Drell–Yan experimental data including the new E906 measurements. Furthermore, the incoming gluon energy loss effect embedded in the Compton scattering subprocess of the nuclear Drell–Yan process is also examined. The NLO computations for Drell–Yan ratios are carried out with the SW quenching weights (provided by Salgado and Wiedemann to evaluate the probability distribution that quark (gluon) loses the energy), as well as the nuclear parton distributions (obtained by only fitting the existing experimental data on nuclear structure functions). It is found that the obtained calculations that consider the incoming quark energy loss agree well with the experimental data particularly for E906 data. In addition, the incoming gluon energy loss embodied in the primary NLO Compton scattering subprocess is not obvious, which may be due to the form of the Drell–Yan differential cross section ratio as a function of the quark momentum fraction () minimizes the influence of the QCD NLO correction.

Jet charge in high-energy nuclear collisions * * This research is supported in part by the NSFC of China with Project Nos. 11935007 and 11435004

The averaged jet charge characterizes the electric charge of the initiating parton and provides a powerful tool to distinguish quark jets from gluon jets. We predict, for the first time, the medium modification of the averaged jet charge in the heavy-ion collisions at the LHC, where jet productions in p+p collisions are simulated by PYTHIA6, and the parton energy loss in QGP is calculated with two Monte Carlo models of jet quenching: PYQUEN and JEWEL. We found that the distribution of averaged jet charge is significantly suppressed by initial state isospin effects due to the participation of neutrons with zero electric charge during nuclear collisions. The considerable enhancement of the averaged jet charge in central Pb+Pb collisions is observed relative to peripheral collisions, since the jet quenching effect is more pronounced in central collisions. The distinct feature of the averaged jet charge between quark and gluon jets, along with the sensitivity of medium modifications on the jet charge to flavor dependence of the parton energy loss, could be very useful to discriminate the energy loss pattern between quark and gluon jets in heavy-ion collisions.

A New Heavy Flavor Program for the Future Electron-Ion Collider

The proposed high-energy and high-luminosity Electron–Ion Collider (EIC) will provide one of the cleanest environments to precisely determine the nuclear parton distribution functions (nPDFs) in a wide x–Q2 range. Heavy flavor production at the EIC provides access to nPDFs in the poorly constrained high Bjorken-x region, allows us to study the quark and gluon fragmentation processes, and constrains parton energy loss in cold nuclear matter. Scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory are developing a new physics program to study heavy flavor production, flavor tagged jets, and heavy flavor hadron-jet correlations in the nucleon/nucleus going direction at the future EIC. The proposed measurements will provide a unique way to explore the flavor dependent fragmentation functions and energy loss in a heavy nucleus. They will constrain the initial-state effects that are critical for the interpretation of previous and ongoing heavy ion measurements at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and the Large Hadron Collider. We show an initial conceptual design of the proposed Forward Silicon Tracking (FST) detector at the EIC, which is essential to carry out the heavy flavor measurements. We further present initial feasibility studies/simulations of heavy flavor hadron reconstruction using the proposed FST.

Studying the mechanisms of the hadron jets production in U+U collisions at GeV

Studying the properties and evolution of the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) is one of the main directions in modern nuclear physics. The leading direction in the QGP studies is the research of the particle production originating from hard scattering of partons produced in the ultra-relativistic heavy nuclei collision. Light mesons (π0, η and KS) invariant spectra and nuclear modification factors measurements at high transverse momenta are used for the parton energy loss models free parameters estimate in large systems and to examine various scaling behaviours. Spherically asymmetric uranium nuclei at GeV are used to determine the influence of geometrical parameters of the colliding system on the fragmentation of hard partons produced in high energy collision of heavy nuclei. This paper presents differential transverse momentum spectra and nuclear modification factors of KS mesons in U+U collisions at GeV measured in a wide transverse momentum range and different centrality intervals with PHENIX experiment at RHIC.

Parton energy loss and the generalized jet transport coefficient

We revisit radiative parton energy loss in deeply inelastic scattering (DIS) off a large nucleus within the perturbative QCD approach. We calculate the gluon radiation spectra induced by double parton scattering in DIS without collinear expansion in the transverse momentum of initial gluons as in the original high-twist approach. The final radiative gluon spectrum can be expressed in terms of the convolution of hard partonic parts and unintegrated or transverse momentum dependent (TMD) quark-gluon correlations. The TMD quark-gluon correlation can be factorized approximately as a product of initial quark distribution and TMD gluon distribution which can be used to define the generalized or TMD jet transport coefficient. Under the static scattering center and soft radiative gluon approximation, we recover the result by Gylassy-Levai-Vitev (GLV) in the first order of the opacity expansion. The difference as a result of the soft radiative gluon approximation is investigated numerically under the static scattering center approximation.

Neutral Meson and Direct Photon Measurements with the ALICE Experiment

The ALICE experiment is designed to study the properties of the matter created in proton-proton and heavy-ion collisions at the LHC. Neutral mesons can be reconstructed in ALICE in a wide range of transverse momenta via two-photon decays. Neutral meson measurements in pp collisions give an opportunity to validate the NLO or NNLO pQCD calculations and to constrain the parton distribution functions and the parton fragmentation functions. Neutral meson spectra measured in pA and AA collisions allow us to test a modification of the parton distribution functions in nuclei and the parton energy loss in the hot matter created in AA collisions. The recent results from ALICE on direct photon measurements in the Pb–Pb, neutral pion and n meson productions in pp, p-Pb, and Pb–Pb collisions are presented.

Energy loss of heavy quarks in the isotropic collisional hot QCD medium

The collisional energy loss of heavy partons (charm and bottom quarks) has been determined within the framework of semi-classical transport theory implying the Bhatnagar–Gross–Krook (BGK) collisional kernel. Hot QCD medium effects have been incorporated while employing a quasi-particle description of the medium in terms of effective gluons, quarks and antiquarks with respective temperature dependent effective fugacities. The momentum dependence of the energy loss for the charm and the bottom quark has been investigated. It is observed that with the increase in momentum of the heavy quarks, the loss increases sharply for the smaller values and reaches saturation later. Furthermore, as compared to the charm quark, the bottom quark loses less energy at a particular momentum and collisional frequency. The energy loss is seen to increase with increasing collisional frequency. We also provide a comparative study of the results obtained using the BGK kernel rather than those using the relaxation time approximation (RTA) kernel and found them to be consistent with each other. The medium effects in all the situations are seen to play a quite significant role.

Radiative Parton Energy Loss and Baryon Stopping in AA Collisions

We study the radiative energy loss contribution to proton stopping in $AA$ collisions. The analyses is performed within the light-cone path integral approach to induced gluon emission. We have found that the radiative correction can fill in partly the midrapidity dip in the net proton rapidity distribution in $AA$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}\sim 10$ GeV. We argue that at $\sqrt{s}\sim 10$ GeV the net proton fluctuations at midrapidity may be dominated by the initial fluctuations of the proton flow, which, to a good accuracy, should be binomial.

Short-path-length corrections to Djordjevic-Gyulassy-Levai-Vitev energy loss

We compute the correction to the energy loss of a hard parton due to short separation distances between the creation of the particle and the in-medium scattering center that stimulates bremsstrahlung radiation, to first order in opacity. In deriving the result we make full use of the large formation time assumption, which results in a significant reduction of the number of diagrams contributing to the small separation distance correction. An asymptotic analysis of our small separation distance correction term finds that the correction dominates at large $\sim 100$ GeV parent parton energies; scales like $L$ with the size of the system for small $L$, but like $L^0$ at larger $L$; and breaks color triviality. An extensive numerical investigation of the correction term confirms the aforementioned analytic findings, reveals that the correction term does not go to zero for large $L$, finds that the correction is sensitive to the mass of the parent parton, and shows a crucial dependence of the energy loss on a proper treatment of the physics of separation distances on the order of the Debye screening length. However, an examination of the large formation time approximation shows that it is violated for much of the phase space of the emitted radiation, implying a need to investigate the sensitivity of jet quenching results from relaxing this approximation. Our result constitutes an important step toward understanding partonic energy loss in small colliding systems.

Hot-medium effects on Υ yields in pPb collisions at sNN=8.16 TeV

The respective contributions of cold-matter and hot-medium effects to the suppression of $\Upsilon(1S)$ and $\Upsilon(2S)$ mesons in pPb collisions at energies reached at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) are investigated. Whereas known alterations of the parton density functions in the lead nucleus and coherent parton energy loss account for the leading fraction of the modifications in cold nuclear matter (CNM), the hot-medium (quark-gluon plasma, QGP) effects turn out to be relevant in spite of the small initial spatial extent of the fireball. We compare our transverse-momentum-, rapidity-, and centrality-dependent theoretical results for the $\Upsilon$ suppression in pPb collisions at a center-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s_\text{NN}} = 8.16$ TeV with recent LHCb and preliminary ALICE data from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Both cold-matter and hot-medium effects are needed to account for the data. The initial central temperature of the fireball is found to be $T_0 \simeq 460$ MeV.

Measurement of jet radial profiles in Pb–Pb collisions at [formula omitted] TeV

The jet radial structure and particle transverse momentum (pT) composition within jets are presented in centrality-selected Pb–Pb collisions at sNN=2.76 TeV. Track-based jets, which are also called charged jets, were reconstructed with a resolution parameter of R=0.3 at midrapidity |ηch jet|<0.6 for transverse momenta pT,ch jet=30–120 GeV/c. Jet–hadron correlations in relative azimuth and pseudorapidity space (Δφ,Δη) are measured to study the distribution of the associated particles around the jet axis for different pT,assoc-ranges between 1 and 20 GeV/c. The data in Pb–Pb collisions are compared to reference distributions for pp collisions, obtained using embedded PYTHIA simulations. The number of high-pT associate particles (4<pT,assoc<20 GeV/c) in Pb–Pb collisions is found to be suppressed compared to the reference by 30 to 10%, depending on centrality. The radial particle distribution relative to the jet axis shows a moderate modification in Pb–Pb collisions with respect to PYTHIA. High-pT associate particles are slightly more collimated in Pb–Pb collisions compared to the reference, while low-pT associate particles tend to be broadened. The results, which are presented for the first time down to pT,ch jet=30 GeV/c in Pb–Pb collisions, are compatible with both previous jet–hadron-related measurements from the CMS Collaboration and jet shape measurements from the ALICE Collaboration at higher pT, and add further support for the established picture of in-medium parton energy loss.

Measurement of [formula omitted] meson production in pp and PbPb collisions at [formula omitted] TeV

The production cross sections of Bs0 mesons and charge conjugates are measured in proton-proton (pp) and PbPb collisions via the exclusive decay channel Bs0→J/ψϕ→μ+μ−K+K− at a center-of-mass energy of 5.02 TeV per nucleon pair and within the rapidity range |y|<2.4 using the CMS detector at the LHC. The pp measurement is performed as a function of transverse momentum (pT) of the Bs0 mesons in the range of 7 to 50 GeV/c and is compared to the predictions of perturbative QCD calculations. The Bs0 production yield in PbPb collisions is measured in two pT intervals, 7 to 15 and 15 to 50 GeV/c, and compared to the yield in pp collisions in the same kinematic region. The nuclear modification factor (RAA) is found to be 1.5±0.6(stat)±0.5(syst) for 7–15 GeV/c, and 0.87±0.30(stat)±0.17(syst) for 15–50 GeV/c, respectively. Within current uncertainties, the Bs0 results are consistent with models of strangeness enhancement, and suppression by parton energy loss, as observed for the B+ mesons.

Studies of Beauty Suppression via Nonprompt D^{0} Mesons in Pb-Pb Collisions at sqrt[s_{NN}]=5.02 TeV.

The transverse momentum spectra of D^{0} mesons from b hadron decays are measured at midrapidity (|y|<1) in pp and Pb-Pb collisions at a nucleon-nucleon center of mass energy of 5.02TeV with the CMS detector at the LHC. The D^{0} mesons from b hadron decays are distinguished from prompt D^{0} mesons by their decay topologies. In Pb-Pb collisions, the B→D^{0} yield is found to be suppressed in the measured p_{T} range from 2 to 100 GeV/c as compared to pp collisions. The suppression is weaker than that of prompt D^{0} mesons and charged hadrons for p_{T} around 10 GeV/c. While theoretical calculations incorporating partonic energy loss in the quark-gluon plasma can successfully describe the measured B→D^{0} suppression at higher p_{T}, the data show an indication of larger suppression than the model predictions in the range of 2<p_{T}<5 GeV/c.