Jet quenching and direct photon production

TL;DR

This paper investigates jet quenching effects on direct photon production in heavy ion collisions using a detailed hydrodynamic model, showing that energy loss significantly affects photon yields but only reduces total production by about 40%.

Contribution

It provides a systematic study of jet quenching effects on direct photon spectra using a realistic hydrodynamic framework and parton energy loss modeling.

Findings

Photon spectra agree with PHENIX data across a broad momentum range.

Parton energy loss significantly impacts photon production from fragmentation and conversion.

Total direct photon production decreases by about 40% due to jet quenching effects.

Abstract

Jet quenching effect has been investigated in the direct photon production, based on a realistic data-constrained (3+1) dimensional hydrodynamic description of the expanding hot and dense matter, a reasonable treatment of the propagation of partons and their energy loss in the fluid, and a systematic study of the main sources of direct photons. Our resultant $\pt$ spectra agree with recent PHENIX data in a broad $\pt$ range. Parton energy loss in the plasma eventually effect significantly direct photon production from fragmentation and jet photon conversion, similar to hadron suppression in central heavy ion collisions. But this only causes about 40% decrease in the total production of direct photons, due to the mixture with other direct photon sources.