Theoretical developments in heavy and light flavor energy loss

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent theoretical advances in understanding heavy and light flavor energy loss in dense nuclear matter, emphasizing the comparison of different energy loss mechanisms and proposing new directions for jet physics at the LHC.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive review of recent developments in perturbative QCD theory related to inelastic parton interactions and introduces new ideas for jet tomography in heavy ion collisions.

Findings

Progress in comparing radiative and collisional energy loss

Identification of novel heavy flavor suppression mechanisms

Proposal of jet shape analysis as a new precision tool

Abstract

Recent developments in the many-body perturbative QCD theory of inelastic parton interactions in dense nuclear matter and the phenomenology of strongly-interacting hard probes in heavy ion collisions are reviewed. We highlight the progress that has been made toward consistent comparison between radiative and collisional energy loss, the exploration of novel heavy flavor suppression mechanisms in the quark-gluon plasma, and the determination of the stopping power of cold nuclear matter. Future directions and opportunities for jet physics in nuclear collisions, enabled by the unprecedentedly high center of mass energies at the LHC, are also discussed. We propose that the physics of jet shapes and a generalizations of the well-understood inclusive particle suppression in the QGP will provide a new differential, and accurate test of the underlying QCD theory and a new precision tool for jet tomography at the LHC.