Turning on the Charm

TL;DR

This paper explains the significant suppression of heavy flavor jets in heavy-ion collisions as primarily caused by binary scatterings within the quark-gluon plasma, supported by first-principles calculations.

Contribution

It provides a first-principles understanding of charm quark energy loss through binary scatterings, going beyond logarithmic approximations and employing Markov evolution.

Findings

Heavy flavor jet quenching is largely due to binary scatterings.

First-principles calculations support the dominant role of these scatterings.

The approach advances understanding of quark-gluon plasma interactions.

Abstract

We argue that the strong jet quenching of heavy flavors observed in heavy-ion collisions is to a large extent due to binary scatterings in the quark-gluon plasma. It can be understood from first principles: the charm collision probability beyond logarithmic accuracy and Markov evolution.