Jet Quenching in Heavy-Ion Collisions - The Transition Era from RHIC to LHC

A status report on the jet quenching physics in heavy-ion collisions is given as it appears after more than 10 years of collecting and analysing data at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and ~1.5 years of physics at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The (theoretical) predictions and expectations before the start of the LHC program are contrasted with the most recent experimental results, focussing on the nuclear modification factor R_{AA}, the elliptic flow v_2 of high-p_T particles, and on the problem of initial conditions.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures, review article in the "Topical Issue on Relativistic Hydro- and Thermodynamics" EPJ

Deflected Jets or Hot Spots? Conical Correlations of Hard Trigger Particles

The double-peak structure observed in soft-hard dihadron correlations was recently studied intensively in order to learn more about the jet-induced medium excitation in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions. Experimental data shows that the double-peak structure obtained for soft trigger particles coalesces into one peak for harder trigger particles. We demonstrate that this effect occurs when averaging over many jet events in a transversally expanding background, while a hot spot scenario always leads to two distinct peaks. This suggests to study soft-hard correlations induced by heavy-flavor jets with those generated by light-flavor jets at RHIC and LHC in order to really disentangle medium effects from jets.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, to appear in the proceedings of the Workshop on 'Hot & Cold Baryonic Matter 2010' (HCBM 2010), Budapest (Hungary

Hydrodynamic Flow and Jet Induced Mach Shocks at RHIC and LHC

We discuss the present collective flow signals for the phase transition to quark-gluon plasma (QGP) and the collective flow as a barometer for the equation of state (EoS). A study of Mach shocks induced by fast partonic jets propagating through the QGP is given. We predict a significant deformation of Mach shocks in central Au+Au collisions at RHIC and LHC energies as compared to the case of jet propagation in a static medium. Results of a hydrodynamical study of jet energy loss are presented.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figure