Soft interactions in jet quenching

We study the collisional aspects of jet quenching in a high energy nuclear collision, especially in the final state pion gas. The jet has a large energy, and acquires momentum transverse to its axis more effectively by multiple soft collisions than by few hard scatterings (as known from analogous systems such as J/\psi production at Hera). Such regime of large E and small momentum transfer corresponds to Regge kinematics and is characteristically dominated by the pomeron. From this insight we estimate the jet quenching parameter in the hadron medium (largely a pion gas) at the end of the collision, which is naturally small and increases with temperature in line with the gas density. The physics in the quark-gluon plasma/liquid phase is less obvious, and here we revisit a couple of simple estimates that suggest indeed that the pomeron-mediated interactions are very relevant and should be included in analysis of the jet quenching parameter. Finally, the ocasional hard collisions produce features characteristic of a L\`evy flight in the q_perp^2 plane perpendicular to the jet axis. We suggest one- and two-particle q_perp correlations as interesting experimental probes.Comment: 14 pages, 16 figure

X(3872) and its Partners in the Heavy Quark Limit of QCD

In this letter, we propose interpolating currents for the X(3872) resonance, and show that, in the Heavy Quark limit of QCD, the X(3872) state should have degenerate partners, independent of its internal structure. Magnitudes of possible I=0 and I=1 components of the X(3872) are also discussed.Comment: 12 page

Zc(3900)Z_c(3900): what has been really seen?

The $Z^\pm_c(3900)/Z^\pm_c(3885)$ resonant structure has been experimentally observed in the $Y(4260) \to J/\psi \pi\pi$ and $Y(4260) \to \bar{D}^\ast D \pi$ decays. This structure is intriguing since it is a prominent candidate of an exotic hadron. Yet, its nature is unclear so far. In this work, we simultaneously describe the $\bar{D}^\ast D$ and $J/\psi \pi$ invariant mass distributions in which the $Z_c$ peak is seen using amplitudes with exact unitarity. Two different scenarios are statistically acceptable, where the origin of the $Z_c$ state is different. They correspond to using energy dependent or independent $\bar D^* D$ $S$-wave interaction. In the first one, the $Z_c$ peak is due to a resonance with a mass around the $D\bar D^*$ threshold. In the second one, the $Z_c$ peak is produced by a virtual state which must have a hadronic molecular nature. In both cases the two observations, $Z^\pm_c(3900)$ and $Z^\pm_c(3885)$, are shown to have the same common origin, and a $\bar D^* D$ bound state solution is not allowed. Precise measurements of the line shapes around the $D\bar D^*$ threshold are called for in order to understand the nature of this state.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure

Drawing the Horton Set in an Integer Grid of Minimum Size

In 1978 Erd\H os asked if every sufficiently large set of points in general position in the plane contains the vertices of a convex $k$-gon, with the additional property that no other point of the set lies in its interior. Shortly after, Horton provided a construction---which is now called the Horton set---with no such $7$-gon. In this paper we show that the Horton set of $n$ points can be realized with integer coordinates of absolute value at most $\frac{1}{2} n^{\frac{1}{2} \log (n/2)}$. We also show that any set of points with integer coordinates combinatorially equivalent (with the same order type) to the Horton set, contains a point with a coordinate of absolute value at least $c \cdot n^{\frac{1}{24}\log (n/2)}$, where $c$ is a positive constant

An upper bound on the k-modem illumination problem

A variation on the classical polygon illumination problem was introduced in [Aichholzer et. al. EuroCG'09]. In this variant light sources are replaced by wireless devices called k-modems, which can penetrate a fixed number k, of "walls". A point in the interior of a polygon is "illuminated" by a k-modem if the line segment joining them intersects at most k edges of the polygon. It is easy to construct polygons of n vertices where the number of k-modems required to illuminate all interior points is Omega(n/k). However, no non-trivial upper bound is known. In this paper we prove that the number of k-modems required to illuminate any polygon of n vertices is at most O(n/k). For the cases of illuminating an orthogonal polygon or a set of disjoint orthogonal segments, we give a tighter bound of 6n/k + 1. Moreover, we present an O(n log n) time algorithm to achieve this bound.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure