Anomalous mass dependence of radiative quark energy loss in a finite-size quark-gluon plasma

Abstract

We demonstrate that for a finite-size quark-gluon plasma the induced gluon radiation from heavy quarks is stronger than that for light quarks when the gluon formation length becomes comparable with (or exceeds) the size of the plasma. The effect is due to oscillations of the light-cone wave function for the in-medium $q\to gq$ transition. The dead cone model by Dokshitzer and Kharzeev neglecting quantum finite-size effects is not valid in this regime. The finite-size effects also enhance the photon emission from heavy quarks.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figure