Exciting the quark-gluon plasma with a relativistic jet

TL;DR

This paper explores how relativistic jets induce unstable modes in a quark-gluon plasma, offering a new perspective on jet quenching and predicting observable effects in high-energy collisions.

Contribution

It introduces a hydrodynamical model showing unstable modes arise from jets in plasma, providing an alternative explanation for jet quenching phenomena.

Findings

Unstable modes occur when jet velocity exceeds the plasma's sound speed.

Most unstable modes at ultrarelativistic velocities are at ~ pi/4 angles.

Jet crossing leads to energy loss via excitation of unstable modes.

Abstract

We discuss the properties of a system composed by a static plasma traversed by a jet of particles. Assuming that both the jet and the plasma can be described using a hydrodynamical approach, and in the conformal limit, we find that unstable modes arise when the velocity of the jet is larger than the speed of the sound of the plasma and only modes with momenta smaller than a certain values are unstable. Moreover, for ultrarelativistic velocities of the jet the most unstable modes correspond to relative angles between the velocity of the jet and momentum of the collective mode ~ pi/4. Our results suggest an alternative mechanism for the description of the jet quenching phenomenon, where the jet crossing the plasma loses energy exciting colored unstable modes. In LHC this effect should be seen with an enhanced production of hadrons for some specific values of their momenta and in certain directions of momenta space.