Interference Phenomena in Medium Induced Radiation

We consider the interference pattern for the medium-induced gluon radiation produced by a color singlet quark-antiquark antenna embedded in a QCD medium with size $L$ and `jet quenching' parameter $\hat q$. Within the BDMPS-Z regime, we demonstrate that, for a dipole opening angle $\theta_{q\bar q} \gg\theta_c\equiv {2}/{\sqrt{\hat q L^3}}$, the interference between the medium--induced gluon emissions by the quark and the antiquark is suppressed with respect to the direct emissions. This is so since direct emissions are delocalized throughout the medium and thus yield contributions proportional to $L$ while interference occurs only between emissions at early times, when both sources remain coherent. Thus, for \tqq \gg\theta_c, the medium-induced radiation is the sum of the two spectra individually produced by the quark and the antiquark, without coherence effects like angular ordering. For \tqq \ll\theta_c, the medium--induced radiation vanishes.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures; Proceedings of the "Quark Matter 2011" conferenc

A New Mechanism of Quark Energy Loss

We show that a heavy quark moving sufficiently fast through a quark-gluon plasma may lose energy by Cherenkov-radiating mesons. We demonstrate that this takes place in all strongly coupled, large-Nc plasmas with a gravity dual. The energy loss is exactly calculable in these models despite being an O(1/Nc)-effect. We discuss phenomenological implications for heavy-ion collision experiments.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures; v2: plot modified, conclusions unchange

Fourier Harmonics of High-pT Particles Probing the Fluctuating Intitial Condition Geometries in Heavy-Ion Collisions

Second Fourier harmonics of jet quenching have been thoroughly explored in the literature and shown to be sensitive to the underlying jet path-length dependence of energy loss and the differences between the mean eccentricity predicted by Glauber and CGC/KLN models of initial conditions. We compute the jet path-length dependence of energy-loss for higher azimuthal harmonics of jet-fragments in a generalized model of energy-loss for RHIC energies and find, however, that even the high-$p_T$ second moment is most sensitive to the poorly known early-time evolution during the first fm/c. Moreover, we demonstrate that higher-jet harmonics are remarkably insensitive to the initial conditions, while the different $v_n(N_{part})$ vs. $v_n^{I_{AA}}(N_{part})$ correlations between the moments of monojet and dijet nuclear modifications factors remain a most sensitive probe to differentiate between Glauber and CGC/KLN initial state sQGP geometries.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures, updated figures, version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Angular Dependence of Jet Quenching Indicates Its Strong Enhancement Near the QCD Phase Transition

We study dependence of jet quenching on matter density, using "tomography" of the fireball provided by RHIC data on azimuthal anisotropy $v_2$ of high $p_t$ hadron yield at different centralities. Slicing the fireball into shells with constant (entropy) density, we derive a "layer-wise geometrical limit" $v_2^{max}$ which is indeed above the data $v_2<v_2^{max}$. Interestingly, the limit is reached only if quenching is dominated by shells with the entropy density exactly in the near-$T_c$ region. We show two models that simultaneously describe the high $p_t$ $v_2$ and $R_{AA}$ data and conclude that such a description can be achieved only if the jet quenching is few times stronger in the near-$T_c$ region relative to QGP at $T>T_c$. One possible reason for that may be recent indications that the near-$T_c$ region is a magnetic plasma of relatively light color-magnetic monopoles.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures. Final version published as PRL102,202302(2009

Jet quenching via jet collimation

The strong modifications of dijet properties in heavy ion collisions measured by ATLAS and CMS provide important constraints on the dynamical mechanisms underlying jet quenching. In this work, we show that the transport of soft gluons away from the jet cone - jet collimation - can account for the observed dijet asymmetry with values of $\hat{q}\, L$ that lie in the expected order of magnitude. Further, we show that the energy loss attained through this mechanism results in a very mild distortion of the azimuthal angle dijet distribution.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures; Proceedings of the "Quark Matter 2011" conferenc

Correlations of Electrons from Heavy Flavor Decay with Hadrons in Au+Au and p+p Collisions

Measurements of electrons from the decay of open-heavy flavor mesons have shown that the yields are suppressed in Au+Au collisions compared to expectations from binary-scaled p+p collisions. These measurements indicate that charm and bottom quarks interact with the hot-dense matter produced in heavy-ion collisions much more than expected. Here we extend these studies to two-particle correlations where one particle is an electron from the decay of a heavy-flavor meson and the other is a charged hadron from either the decay of the heavy meson or from jet fragmentation. These measurements provide more detailed information about the interactions between heavy quarks and the matter, such as whether the modifcation of the away-side-jet shape seen in hadron-hadron correlations is present when the trigger particle is from heavy-meson decay and whether the overall level of away-side-jet suppression is consistent. We statistically subtract correlations of electrons arising from background sources from the inclusive electron-hadron correlations and obtain two-particle azimuthal correlations at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ =200 GeV between electrons from heavy-flavor decay with charged hadrons in p+p and also first results in Au+Au collisions. We find the away-side-jet shape and yield to be modified in Au+Au collisions compared to p+p collisions.Comment: talk given at Winter Workshop in Nuclear Dynamics 201

S-Wave Quarkonia in Potential Models

We discuss S-wave quarkonia correlators and spectral function using the Wong-potential, and show that these do not agree with the lattice results.Comment: based on talk presented at Strangeness in Quark Matter, UCLA, March 26-31, 200