Medium Modification of the Jet Properties

In the case that a dense medium is created in a heavy ions collision, high-E_t jets are expected to be broadened by medium-modified gluon emission. This broadening is directly related, through geometry, to the energy loss measured in inclusive high-p_t particle suppression. We present here the modifications of jet observables due to the presence of a medium for the case of azimuthal jet energy distributions and k_t-differential multiplicities inside the jets.Comment: 4 pages, 3 postscript figures. Proceedings for Quark Matter 200

Jet quenching

High-pt particles produced in nucleus-nucleus collisions constitute a powerful tool to study the medium properties. The energy loss resulting from the propagation of these particles in the produced medium translates into a suppression of the high-pt yields. These effects are usually associated to medium-induced gluon radiation which, in turn, predicts a broadening of the jet-like signals. Both the energy loss and the jet broadening are expected to increase proportionally to the medium density. In the more realistic case of a dynamically expanding medium, the gluon radiation becomes anisotropic due to the presence of a preferred direction in the transverse plane with respect to the axis of propagation. This anisotropy translates into deformed jet-shapes which provide new posibilities to study these flows by high-pt measurements.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of the XXXX Rencontres de Moriond. QCD and high energy hadronic interaction

Jets in heavy ion collisions

High energetic particles traversing a dense medium lose a sizable part of their energy in form of gluon radiation. As a result, the rate of high-$p_t$ particles is expected to be suppressed in heavy ion collisions with respect to the proton case. Recent experimental data from RHIC strongly support this scenario. This allows to study the properties of the medium by the amount of jet quenching it produces. The angular dependence of the radiation is modified in the medium in a characteristic way. This provides another tool to study the medium properties in a more differential measurement.Comment: 4 pages, 3 postscript figures. Contributed to 38th Rencontres de Moriond on QCD and Hadronic Interactions, Les Arcs, France, 22-29 Mar 200

Theory summary. Hard Probes 2012

I provide a summary of the theoretical talks in Hard Probes 2012 together with some personal thoughts about the present and the future of the field.Comment: 8 pages. Proceedings of the conference Hard Probes 2012 - Sardinia - Italy - May 27 -June 1 2012 --- Comments welcom

Hard QCD probes to quark-gluon plasma

Completely unexplored regimes of QCD, dominated by high-density/temperature effects, are available in heavy ion experiments at collider energies. The successful RHIC program shows how relevant the high transverse momentum part of the spectrum is for the characterization of the properties of the created medium. It points, as well, to interesting properties of the nuclear wave function at small fraction of momentum x, probably dominated by saturated color fields. In both domains, the imminent LHC program will provide a phase space enlarged by orders of magnitude with respect to those studied at RHIC. I will review the present status of hard probes in heavy ion collisions as well as the expectations for the LHC.Comment: 8 pages, invited talk at the YKIS Seminar on New Frontiers in QC

Standard General Relativity from Chern-Simons Gravity

Chern-Simons models for gravity are interesting because they provide with a truly gauge-invariant action principle in the fiber-bundle sense. So far, their main drawback has largely been the perceived remoteness from standard General Relativity, based on the presence of higher powers of the curvature in the Lagrangian (except, remarkably, for three-dimensional spacetime). Here we report on a simple model that suggests a mechanism by which standard General Relativity in five-dimensional spacetime may indeed emerge at a special critical point in the space of couplings, where additional degrees of freedom and corresponding "anomalous" Gauss-Bonnet constraints drop out from the Chern-Simons action. To achieve this result, both the Lie algebra g and the symmetric g-invariant tensor that define the Chern-Simons Lagrangian are constructed by means of the Lie algebra S-expansion method with a suitable finite abelian semigroup S. The results are generalized to arbitrary odd dimensions, and the possible extension to the case of eleven-dimensional supergravity is briefly discussed.Comment: 6 pages, no figures; v2: published versio

Gluon distributions in nuclei at small x: guidance from different models

Different approaches to gluon shadowing at small x are reviewed. Some available results relevant for RHIC and LHC are compared.Comment: 6 pages, LaTeX2e, uses enclosed cernrep.cls, one eps figure enclosed using graphicx, contribution to the Yellow Report on Hard Probes in Heavy Ion Collisions at the LH