Energy dependence of jet transport parameter and parton saturation in quark-gluon plasma

We study the evolution and saturation of the gluon distribution function in the quark-gluon plasma as probed by a propagating parton and its effect on the computation of jet quenching or transport parameter $\hat{q}$. For thermal partons, the saturation scale $Q^2_s$ is found to be proportional to the Debye screening mass $\mu_D^2$. For hard probes, evolution at small $x=Q^2_s/6ET$ leads to jet energy dependence of $\hat{q}$. We study this dependence for both a conformal gauge theory in weak and strong coupling limit and for (pure gluon) QCD. The energy dependence can be used to extract the shear viscosity $\eta$ of the medium since $\eta$ can be related to the transport parameter for thermal partons in a transport description. We also derive upper bounds on the transport parameter for both energetic and thermal partons. The later leads to a lower bound on shear viscosity-to-entropy density ratio which is consistent with the conjectured lower bound $\eta/s\geq 1/4\pi$. We also discuss the implications on the study of jet quenching at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and the CERN Large Hadron Collider and the bulk properties of the dense matter.Comment: 15 pages in RevTex with 9 figures (v4 final published version

Spin-Dependent Antenna Splitting Functions

We consider parton showers based on radiation from QCD dipoles or `antennae'. These showers are built from 2->3 parton splitting processes. The question then arises of what functions replace the Altarelli-Parisi splitting functions in this approach. We give a detailed answer to this question, applicable to antenna showers in which partons carry definite helicity, and to both initial- and final-state emissions.Comment: 31 pages, 12 figure

Interjet Energy Flow/Event Shape Correlations

We identify a class of perturbatively computable measures of interjet energy flow, which can be associated with well-defined color flow at short distances. As an illustration, we calculate correlations between event shapes and the flow of energy, Q_Omega, into an interjet angular region, Omega, in high-energy two-jet e^+e^- -annihilation events. Laplace transforms with respect to the event shapes suppress states with radiation at intermediate energy scales, so that we may compute systematically logarithms of interjet energy flow. This method provides a set of predictions on energy radiated between jets, as a function of event shape and of the choice of the region Omega in which the energy is measured. Non-global logarithms appear as corrections. We apply our method to a continuous class of event shapes.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures. Based on talk given by C.F. Berger at TH-2002, International Conference on Theoretical Physics, Theme 2: "QCD, Hadron dynamics, etc.", Paris, France, 2002. Slight changes to text, reference adde

What can we learn from Dijet suppression at RHIC?

We present a systematic study of the dijet suppression at RHIC using the VNI/BMS parton cascade. We examine the modification of the dijet asymmetry A_j and the within-cone transverse energy distribution (jet-shape) along with partonic fragmentation distributions z and j_t in terms of: qhat; the path length of leading and sub-leading jets; cuts on the jet energy distributions; jet cone angle and the jet-medium interaction mechanism. We find that A_j is most sensitive to qhat and relatively insensitive to the nature of the jet-medium interaction mechanism. The jet profile is dominated by qhat and the nature of the interaction mechanism. The partonic fragmentation distributions clearly show the jet modification and differentiate between elastic and radiative+elastic modes

Modified Fragmentation Function from Quark Recombination

Within the framework of the constituent quark model, it is shown that the single hadron fragmentation function of a parton can be expressed as a convolution of shower diquark or triquark distribution function and quark recombination probability, if the interference between amplitudes of quark recombination with different momenta is neglected. The recombination probability is determined by the hadron's wavefunction in the constituent quark model. The shower diquark or triquark distribution functions of a fragmenting jet are defined in terms of overlapping matrices of constituent quarks and parton field operators. They are similar in form to dihadron or trihadron fragmentation functions in terms of parton operator and hadron states. Extending the formalism to the field theory at finite temperature, we automatically derive contributions to the effective single hadron fragmentation function from the recombination of shower and thermal constituent quarks. Such contributions involve single or diquark distribution functions which in turn can be related to diquark or triquark distribution functions via sum rules. We also derive QCD evolution equations for quark distribution functions that in turn determine the evolution of the effective jet fragmentation functions in a thermal medium.Comment: 23 pages in RevTex with 8 postscript figure

Nagy-Soper subtraction scheme for multiparton final states

In this work, we present the extension of an alternative subtraction scheme for next-to-leading order QCD calculations to the case of an arbitrary number of massless final-state partons. The scheme is based on the splitting kernels of an improved parton shower and comes with a reduced number of final state momentum mappings. While a previous publication including the setup of the scheme has been restricted to cases with maximally two massless partons in the final state, we here provide the final state real emission and integrated subtraction terms for processes with any number of massless partons. We apply our scheme to three jet production at lepton colliders at next-to-leading order and present results for the differential C parameter distribution.Comment: 45 pages, 5 figures v2: several references added; v3: title changed, references and a discussion of further scaling improvement added. Corresponds to published journal versio

A pQCD-based description of heavy and light flavor jet quenching

We present a successful description of the medium modification of light and heavy flavor jets within a perturbative QCD (pQCD) based approach. Only the couplings involving hard partons are assumed to be weak. The effect of the medium on a hard parton, per unit time, is encoded in terms of three non-perturbative, related transport coefficients which describe the transverse momentum squared gained, the elastic energy loss and diffusion in elastic energy transfer. A fit of the centrality dependence of the suppression and the azimuthal anisotropy of leading hadrons tends to favor somewhat larger transport coefficients for heavy quarks. Imposing additional constraints based on leading order (LO) Hard Thermal Loop (HTL) effective theory, leads to a worsening of the fit.Comment: v2, 4 pages, 3 figure

Energy Conservation Constraints on Multiplicity Correlations in QCD Jets

We compute analytically the effects of energy conservation on the self-similar structure of parton correlations in QCD jets. The calculations are performed both in the constant and running coupling cases. It is shown that the corrections are phenomenologically sizeable. On a theoretical ground, energy conservation constraints preserve the scaling properties of correlations in QCD jets beyond the leading log approximation.Comment: 11 pages, latex, 5 figures, .tar.gz version avaliable on ftp://www.inln.unice.fr

Associated Production of a Top Quark and a Charged Higgs Boson

We compute the inclusive and differential cross sections for the associated production of a top quark along with a charged Higgs boson at hadron colliders to next-to-leading order (NLO) in perturbative quantum chromodynamics (QCD) and in supersymmetric QCD. For small Higgs boson masses we include top quark pair production diagrams with subsequent top quark decay into a bottom quark and a charged Higgs boson. We compare the NLO differential cross sections obtained in the bottom parton picture with those for the gluon-initiated production process and find good agreement. The effects of supersymmetric loop contributions are explored. Only the corrections to the Yukawa coupling are sizable in the potential discovery region at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC). All expressions and numerical results are fully differential, permitting selections on the momenta of both the top quark and the charged Higgs boson.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures; section, figures, equations and references added, version to appear in PRD, 33 pages, 11 figure