Jet modification in 200 AGeV Au-Au collisions

TL;DR

This paper models how the medium created in 200 AGeV Au-Au collisions modifies the longitudinal momentum distribution of jets, providing a baseline for understanding jet quenching effects in heavy-ion collisions.

Contribution

It introduces a Monte-Carlo simulation combined with hydrodynamical modeling to predict jet modifications in a realistic heavy-ion collision environment.

Findings

Predicted redistribution of jet energy and momentum due to medium effects.

Baseline expectations for jet modification under experimental cuts.

Insight into the nature of jet quenching in heavy-ion collisions.

Abstract

The computation of hard processes in hadronic collisions is a major success of perturbative Quantum Chromodynamics. The environment of heavy-ion collisions offers the opportunity to embed such hard processes into a soft medium which is created simultaneously and study the medium-induced modifications. On the level of single high transverse momentum hadrons, a reduction in yield, the so-called quenching is observed. However, on the level of jets, the energy-momentum flux carried by hadrons is conserved, i.e. the effect of the medium is a redistribution of energy and momentum, and statements about quenching of jets can only be made for specific cuts used to identify the jet. In this paper, we present a baseline computation for the expected modification of the longitudinal momentum distribution in jets by the medium created in 200 AGeV Au-Au collisions given a realistic set of experimental cuts used to identify jets in a heavy-iron environment. For this purpose, we use a Monte-Carlo code developed to simulate in-medium shower evolution following a hard process and a 3-d hydrodynamical evolution to simulate the soft medium.