Medium-modified average multiplicity and multiplicity fluctuations in jets

Abstract

The energy evolution of average multiplicities and multiplicity fluctuations in jets produced in heavy-ion collisions is investigated from a toy QCD-inspired model. In this model, we use modified splitting functions accounting for medium-enhanced radiation of gluons by a fast parton which propagates through the quark gluon plasma. The leading contribution of the standard production of soft hadrons is enhanced by a factor $\sqrt{N_s}$ while next-to-leading order (NLO) corrections are suppressed by $1/\sqrt{N_s}$, where the parameter $N_s>1$ accounts for the induced-soft gluons in the medium. Our results for such global observables are cross-checked and compared with their limits in the vacuum.Comment: 8 pages and 4 figures. Version to be published in EPJ