Quark Jets Research Articles

Dissecting soft radiation with factorization.

An essential part of high-energy hadronic collisions is the soft hadronic activity that underlies the primary hard interaction. It includes soft radiation from the primary hard partons, secondary multiple parton interactions (MPI), and factorization-violating effects. The invariant mass spectrum of the leading jet in Z+jet and H+jet events is directly sensitive to these effects, and we use a QCD factorization theorem to predict its dependence on the jet radius R, jet p_{T}, jet rapidity, and partonic process for both the perturbative and nonperturbative components of primary soft radiation. We prove that the nonperturbative contributions involve only odd powers of R, and the linear R term is universal for quark and gluon jets. The hadronization model in Pythia8 agrees well with these properties. The perturbative soft initial state radiation (ISR) has a contribution that depends on the jet area in the same way as the underlying event, but this degeneracy is broken by dependence on the jet p_{T}. The size of this soft ISR contribution is proportional to the color state of the initial partons, yielding the same positive contribution for gg→Hg and gq→Zq, but a negative interference contribution for qq[over ¯]→Zg. Hence, measuring these dependencies allows one to separate hadronization, soft ISR, and MPI contributions in the data.

Measurement of the W + b-jet and W + c-jet differential production cross sections in [formula omitted] collisions at [formula omitted

We present a measurement of the cross sections for the associated production of a W boson with at least one heavy quark jet, b or c, in proton–antiproton collisions. Data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 8.7 fb−1 recorded with the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron pp¯ Collider at s=1.96 TeV are used to measure the cross sections differentially as a function of the jet transverse momenta in the range 20 to 150 GeV. These results are compared to calculations of perturbative QCD theory as well as predictions from Monte Carlo generators.

Gaining (mutual) information about quark/gluon discrimination

Discriminating quark jets from gluon jets is an important but challenging problem in jet substructure. In this paper, we use the concept of mutual information to illuminate the physics of quark/gluon tagging. Ideal quark/gluon separation requires only one bit of truth information, so even if two discriminant variables are largely uncorrelated, they can still share the same "truth overlap". Mutual information can be used to diagnose such situations, and thus determine which discriminant variables are redundant and which can be combined to improve performance. Using both parton showers and analytic resummation, we study a two-parameter family of generalized angularities, which includes familiar infrared and collinear (IRC) safe observables like thrust and broadening, as well as IRC unsafe variants like $p_T^D$ and hadron multiplicity. At leading-logarithmic (LL) order, the bulk of these variables exhibit Casimir scaling, such that their truth overlap is a universal function of the color factor ratio $C_A/C_F$. Only at next-to-leading-logarithmic (NLL) order can one see a difference in quark/gluon performance. For the IRC safe angularities, we show that the quark/gluon performance can be improved by combining angularities with complementary angular exponents. Interestingly, LL order, NLL order, Pythia 8, and Herwig++ all exhibit similar correlations between observables, but there are significant differences in the predicted quark/gluon discrimination power. For the IRC unsafe angularities, we show that the mutual information can be calculated analytically with the help of a nonperturbative "weighted-energy function", providing evidence for the complementarity of safe and unsafe observables for quark/gluon discrimination.

Compressed SUSY search at the 13 TeV LHC using kinematic correlations and structure of ISR jets

The LHC search for nearly degenerate gluinos and neutralinos, which can occur, for example, in SUSY axion models, is limited by the reduced missing transverse momentum and effective mass in the events. We propose the use of kinematic correlations between jets coming from initial state radiation (ISR) in gluino pair production events at the 13 TeV LHC. A significant improvement in the signal to background ratio is obtained for the highly compressed gluino-neutralino search, by using cuts on the rapidity and azimuthal angle separation between the pair of tagged jets with the highest transverse momenta. Furthermore, the distribution of the azimuthal angle difference between the tagged jets in the $$ \tilde{g}\tilde{g} $$ + jets process is found to be distinctly different from the dominant background process of Z + jets. We also find quark and gluon jet tagging methods to be useful in separating the signal, which contains a higher fraction of gluon initiated jets compared to the dominant backgrounds.

Fragmentation in jets at NNLO

Beam and jet functions in Soft-Collinear Effective Theory describe collinear initial- and final-state radiation (jets), and enter in factorization theorems for N-jet production, the Higgs pT spectrum, etc. We show that they may directly be calculated as phase-space integrals of QCD splitting functions. At NLO all computations are trivial, as we demonstrate explicitly for the beam function, the transverse-momentum-dependent beam function, the jet function and the fragmenting jet function. This approach also highlights the role of crossing symmetry in these calculations. At NNLO we reproduce the quark jet function and calculate the fragmenting quark jet function for the first time. Here we use two methods: a direct phase-space integration and a reduction to master integrals which are computed using differential equations.

Heavy flavor puzzle from data measured at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider: Analysis of the underlying effects

Suppressions of light and heavy flavor observables are considered to be excellent probes of QCD matter created in ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions. Suppression predictions of quark and gluon jets appear to suggest a clear hierarchy according to which neutral pions should be more suppressed than D mesons, which in turn should be more suppressed than single electrons. However, joint comparison of neutral pion (light probe) and non-photonic single electron (heavy probe) suppression data at RHIC unexpectedly showed similar jet suppression for these two probes, which presents the well-known heavy flavor puzzle at RHIC. We here analyze which effects are responsible for this unexpected result, by using the dynamical energy loss formalism. We find that the main effect is a surprising reversal in the suppression hierarchy between neutral pions and D mesons, which is due to the deformation of the suppression patterns of light partons by fragmentation functions. Furthermore, we find that, due to the decay functions, the single electron suppression approaches the D meson suppression. Consequently, we propose that these two effects, taken together, provide a clear intuitive explanation of this longstanding puzzle.

Quantitative extraction of the jet transport parameter from combined data at RHIC and LHC

Using theoretical tools developed by the JET Collaboration in which one employes 2+1D or 3+1D hydrodynamic models for the bulk medium evolution and jet quenching models, the combined data on suppression of single inclusive hadron spectra at both RHIC and LHC are systematically analyzed with five different approaches to the parton energy loss. The jet transport parameter is extracted from the best fits to the data with values of $\hat q \approx 1.2\pm 0.3$ and $1.9\pm 0.7$ GeV$^2$/fm in the center of the most central Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s}=200$ GeV and Pb+Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s}=2.67$ TeV, respectively at an initial time $\tau_0=0.6$ fm/$c$ for a quark jet with an initial energy of 10 GeV/$c$.

Holographic light quark jet quenching at RHIC and LHC via the shooting strings

A new shooting string holographic model of jet quenching of light quarks in strongly coupled plasmas is presented to overcome the phenomenological incompatibilities of previous falling string holographic scenarios that emerged when confronted with the recent LHC data. This model is based on strings with finite momentum endpoints that start close to the horizon and lose energy as they approach the boundary. This framework is applied to compute the nuclear modification factor RAA of light hadrons at RHIC and LHC, showing that this model improves greatly the comparison with the recent light hadron suppression data. The effects of the Gauss-Bonnet quadratic curvature corrections to the AdS5 geometry further improve the agreement with the data.

Constrains for non-standard statistical models of particle creations by identified hadron multiplicity results at LHC energies

We analysed the identified hadron multiplicity predictions of the modified thermodynamical model of the multiparticle production processes with non-extensive statistic. The replacement of the standard Boltzmann exponential factor by the eventually much slower falling Tsallis one is suggested by the analysis of the transverse momentum distributions measured at high energies. The increase of high transverse momenta should accord with the abundance of heavy secondary particles, in particular multistrange barions. The introduction to the thermodynamical model of suppression factors similar to the ones in a quark jet fragmentation models is discussed.

Improved b quark jet identification at the D0 experiment

The ability to identify jets which originated from b quarks is an important tool of the physics program of the D0 experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron pp¯ collider. This paper describes a new algorithm designed to select jets originating from b quarks while suppressing the contamination caused by jets from other quark flavors and gluons. Additionally, a new technique, the SystemN method, for determining the misidentification rate directly from data is presented.

Real-time b-jet identification in ATLAS

There are interesting physics processes studied at the ATLAS detector at the LHC, whose signatures contain quark jets, but no charged lepton: top quark pair production where both quarks decay hadronically, Higgs boson produced in vector boson fusion and decaying to a bottom quark pair, or supersymmetric signatures with no charged lepton. Data for these processes can only be collected using jet-based triggers. As LHC instantaneous luminosity increases, jet transverse-energy thresholds need to be raised, lowering the signal acceptance for a wide range of signatures. However, the need to raise jet thresholds can be made less pressing if jets originating from bottom quarks are identified as such (b-tagging) already at the trigger stage if at least one jet originates from a bottom quark. ATLAS started using b-jet real-time identification in 2011, increased their performance in 2012 and plans to use even more advanced taggers in 2015.

Measuring collinearWemissions inside jets

Single and multiple emission of electroweak gauge bosons and in particular of $W$ bosons is discussed in the parton shower language. Algorithms and observables for the reconstruction of both leptonically and hadronically decaying $W$ bosons inside light quark jets are compared, and they are applied to a study of how emission rates of $W$ bosons in light-jet events at the LHC could be measured.

Jet quenching and heavy quarks

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.

Heavy quark fragmenting jet functions

Heavy quark fragmenting jet functions describe the fragmentation of a parton into a jet containing a heavy quark, carrying a fraction of the jet momentum. They are two-scale objects, sensitive to the heavy quark mass, $m_Q$, and to a jet resolution variable, $\tau_N$. We discuss how cross sections for heavy flavor production at high transverse momentum can be expressed in terms of heavy quark fragmenting jet functions, and how the properties of these functions can be used to achieve a simultaneous resummation of logarithms of the jet resolution variable, and logarithms of the quark mass. We calculate the heavy quark fragmenting jet function $\mathcal G_Q^Q$ at $\mathcal O(\alpha_s)$, and the gluon and light quark fragmenting jet functions into a heavy quark, $\mathcal G_g^Q$ and $\mathcal G_l^Q$, at $\mathcal O(\alpha_s^2)$. We verify that, in the limit in which the jet invariant mass is much larger than $m_Q$, the logarithmic dependence of the fragmenting jet functions on the quark mass is reproduced by the heavy quark fragmentation functions. The fragmenting jet functions can thus be written as convolutions of the fragmentation functions with the matching coefficients $\mathcal J_{i j}$, which depend only on dynamics at the jet scale. We reproduce the known matching coefficients $\mathcal J_{i j}$ at $\mathcal O(\alpha_s)$, and we obtain the expressions of the coefficients $\mathcal J_{g Q}$ and $\mathcal J_{l Q}$ at $\mathcal O(\alpha_s^2)$. Our calculation provides all the perturbative ingredients for the simultaneous resummation of logarithms of $m_Q$ and $\tau_N$.

Measurement of Associated Production ofZBosons with Charm Quark Jets inpp¯Collisions ats=1.96 TeV

We present the first measurements of the ratios of cross sections σ(pp → Z+c jet)/σ(pp → Z+jet) and σ(pp → Z+c jet)/σ(pp → Z+b jet) for the associated production of a Z boson with at least one charm or bottom quark jet. Jets have transverse momentum ​pT(jet)​>20 GeV and pseudorapidity |​η(jet)​|<2.5. These cross section ratios are measured differentially as a function of jet and Z boson transverse momenta, based on 9.7 fb(-1) of pp collisions collected with the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider at √s=1.96 TeV. The measurements show significant deviations from perturbative QCD calculations and predictions from various event generators.

QCD jets production at proton–proton collision in peripheral kinematics

Processes in fragmentation region of proton - heavy ion (electron) collisions with creation of hadronic jets are considered in frame of QCD. Creation of one and two gluon jets as well as heavy quark jets initiated by gluons and light quarks inside the proton are considered. The differential cross section of the energy fractions and the transversal momenta of gluons and quarks from the jets are considered. The “reflection” kinematics of the light quark (gluon) jet, accompanied by heavy quark pair is discussed.

Search for the production ofZWandZZboson pairs decaying into charged leptons and jets inpp¯collisions ats=1.96 TeV

We present a measurement of the production cross section for ZW and ZZ boson pairs in final states with a pair of charged leptons, from the decay of a Z boson, and at least two jets, from the decay of a W or Z boson, using the full sample of proton-antiproton collisions recorded with the CDF II detector at the Tevatron, corresponding to 8.9 fb^(-1) of integrated luminosity. We increase the sensitivity to vector boson decays into pairs of quarks using a neural network discriminant that exploits the differences between the spatial spread of energy depositions and charged-particle momenta contained within the jet of particles originating from quarks and gluons. Additionally, we employ new jet energy corrections to Monte Carlo simulations that account for differences in the observed energy scales for quark and gluon jets. The number of signal events is extracted through a simultaneous fit to the dijet mass spectrum in three classes of events: events likely to contain jets with a heavy-quark decay, events likely to contain jets originating from light quarks, and events that fail these identification criteria. We determine the production cross section to be 2.5 +2.0 -1.0 pb (< 6.1 pb at the 95% confidence level), consistent with the standard model prediction of 5.1 pb.

Jet mass spectra in Higgs boson plus one jet at next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic order

The invariant mass of a jet is a benchmark variable describing the structure of jets at the LHC. We calculate the jet mass spectrum for Higgs plus one jet at the LHC at next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic (NNLL) order using a factorization formula. At this order, the cross section becomes sensitive to perturbation theory at the soft m_jet^2/p_T^jet scale. Our calculation is exclusive and uses the 1-jettiness global event shape to implement a veto on additional jets. The dominant dependence on the jet veto is removed by normalizing the spectrum, leaving residual dependence from non-global logarithms depending on the ratio of the jet mass and jet veto variables. For our exclusive jet cross section these non-global logarithms are parametrically smaller than in the inclusive case, allowing us to obtain a complete NNLL result. Results for the dependence of the jet mass spectrum on the kinematics, jet algorithm, and jet size R are given. Using individual partonic channels we illustrate the difference between the jet mass spectra for quark and gluon jets. We also study the effect of hadronization and underlying event on the jet mass in PYTHIA. To highlight the similarity of inclusive and exclusive jet mass spectra, a comparison to LHC data is presented.

Phenomenology of light quark jet quenching in AdS/CFT

We explore phenomenological signatures of light quark jet quenching within the AdS/CFT correspondence. Firstly, we note that the numerical studies indicate a linear path dependence of the instantaneous energy loss of light quarks modeled as falling strings. Secondly, we propose a phenomenological model for generic description of their energy loss and use it to compute the nuclear modification factor RAA for light quarks in an expanding plasma with Glauber initial conditions. Comparing with the light hadron RAA data at the LHC, a qualitative agreement is shown. Thirdly, we show how the observed quantitative disagreement can be partially alleviated by including the effects from higher derivative corrections to AdS5.

DETERMINATION OF CHARM QUARK MASS AND αs(MZ) FROM HERA DATA

Charm production data from HERA may be used to determine the charm quark mass and jet production data from HERA may be used to determine αs(MZ). Recent results are summarised.