Jet quenching of massive quarks in a nuclear medium

Utilizing the generalized factorization of twist-4 processes, we derive the modified heavy quark fragmentation function after considering the gluon radiation induced by multiple scattering in DIS. It is found that the mass effects of heavy quark may reduce the gluon formation time and change the medium size dependence of heavy quark energy loss. The radiative energy loss is also significantly suppressed relative to a light quark due to the dead-cone effect.Comment: Talk at the "32nd International Conference on High Energy Physics", August 16 - 22, 2004, Beijing, China. To appear in the proceedings of ICHEP'04. 4 pages, 4 figure

Momentum imbalance of isolated photon-tagged jet production at RHIC and LHC

In collisions of ultra-relativistic nuclei, photon-tagged jets provide a unique opportunity to compare jet production and modification due to parton shower formation and propagation in strongly-interacting matter at vastly different center-of-mass energies. We present first results for the cross sections of jets tagged by an isolated photon to ${\cal O}(\alpha_{\rm em} \alpha_s^2)$ in central Au+Au reactions with $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200$ GeV at RHIC and central Pb+Pb reactions with $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=2.76$ TeV at LHC. We evaluate the increase in the transverse momentum imbalance of the observed $\gamma$+jet state, induced by the dissipation of the parton shower energy due to strong final-state interactions. Theoretical predictions to help interpret recent and upcoming experimental data are presented.Comment: 4 pages, 3 eps figures, 1 table. Version to appear in PR

Jet tomography of high-energy nucleus-nucleus collisions at next-to-leading order

We demonstrate that jet observables are highly sensitive to the characteristics of the vacuum and the in-medium QCD parton showers and propose techniques that exploit this sensitivity to constrain the mechanism of quark and gluon energy loss in strongly-interacting plasmas. As a first example, we calculate the inclusive jet cross section in high-energy nucleus-nucleus collisions to ${\cal O}(\alpha_s^3)$. Theoretical predictions for the medium-induced jet broadening and the suppression of the jet production rate due to cold and hot nuclear matter effects in Au+Au and Cu+Cu reactions at RHIC are presented.Comment: 4 pages, 3 eps figures, 1 table. As published in PRL

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.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figure

Nuclear suppression of ϕ\phi meson yields with large pTp_T at the RHIC and the LHC

We calculate $\phi$ meson transverse momentum spectra in p+p collisions as well as their nuclear suppressions in central A+A collisions both at the RHIC and the LHC in LO and NLO with the QCD-improved parton model. We have included the parton energy loss effect in hot/dense QCD medium with the effectively medium-modified $\phi$ fragmentation functions in the higher-twist approach of jet quenching. The nuclear modification factors of $\phi$ meson in central Au+Au collisions at the RHIC and central Pb+Pb collisions at the LHC are provided, and a nice agreement of our numerical results at NLO with the ALICE measurement is observed. Predictions of yield ratios of neutral mesons such as $\phi/\pi^0$, $\phi/\eta$ and $\phi/\rho^0$ at large $p_T$ in relativistic heavy-ion collisions are also presented for the first time.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figure

η\eta meson production of high-energy nuclear collisions at NLO

The transverse momentum spectrum of $\eta$ meson in relativistic heavy-ion collisions is studied at the next-to-leading-order (NLO) within the perturbative QCD, where the jet quenching effect in the QGP is incorporated with the effectively medium-modified $\eta$ fragmentation functions using the higher-twist approach. We show that the theoretical simulations could give nice descriptions of PHENIX data on $\eta$ meson in both $\rm p+p$ and central $\rm Au+Au$ collisions at the RHIC, and also provide numerical predictions of $\eta$ spectra in central $\rm Pb+Pb$ collisions with $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=2.76$~TeV at the LHC. The ratios of $\eta/\pi^0$ in $\rm p+p$ and in central $\rm Au+Au$ collisions at $200$~GeV are found to overlap in a wide $p_T$ region, which matches well the measured ratio $\eta / \pi^0$ by PHENIX. We demonstrate that, at the asymptotic region when $p_{T} \rightarrow \infty$ the ratios of $\eta/\pi^{0}$ in both $\rm Au+Au$ and $\rm p+p$ are almost determined only by quark jets fragmentation and thus approach to the one in $e^{+} e^{-}$ scattering; in addition, the almost identical gluon (quark) contribution fractions to $\eta$ and to $\pi$ result in a rather moderate variation of $\eta/\pi^{0}$ distribution at intermediate and high $p_T$ region in $\rm A+A$ relative to that in $\rm p+p$; while a slightly higher $\eta/\pi^{0}$ at small $p_T$ in $\rm Au+Au$ can be observed due to larger suppression of gluon contribution fraction to $\pi^{0}$ as compared to the one to $\eta$. The theoretical prediction for $\eta / \pi^0$ at the LHC has also been presented.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figures, 2 typos corrected, revision for publicatio

Quantifying jet transport properties via large pTp_T hadron production

Nuclear modification factor $R_{AA}$ for large $p_T$ single hadron is studied in a next-to-leading order (NLO) perturbative QCD (pQCD) parton model with medium-modified fragmentation functions (mFFs) due to jet quenching in high-energy heavy-ion collisions. The energy loss of the hard partons in the QGP is incorporated in the mFFs which utilize two most important parameters to characterize the transport properties of the hard parton jets: the jet transport parameter $\hat q_{0}$ and the mean free path $\lambda_{0}$, both at the initial time $\tau_0$. A phenomenological study of the experimental data for $R_{AA}(p_{T})$ is performed to constrain the two parameters with simultaneous $\chi^2/{\rm d.o.f}$ fits to RHIC as well as LHC data. We obtain for energetic quarks $\hat q_{0}\approx 1.1 \pm 0.2$ GeV$^2$/fm and $\lambda_{0}\approx 0.4 \pm 0.03$ fm in central $Au+Au$ collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200$ GeV, while $\hat q_{0}\approx 1.7 \pm 0.3$ GeV$^2$/fm, and $\lambda_{0}\approx 0.5 \pm 0.05$ fm in central $Pb+Pb$ collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=2.76$ TeV. Numerical analysis shows that the best fit favors a multiple scattering picture for the energetic jets propagating through the bulk medium, with a moderate averaged number of gluon emissions. Based on the best constraints for $\lambda_{0}$ and $\tau_0$, the estimated value for the mean-squared transverse momentum broadening is moderate which implies that the hard jets go through the medium with small reflection.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, revised versio