Electron-muon correlation as a new probe to strongly interacting quark-gluon plasma

TL;DR

This paper proposes using azimuthal correlations between electrons and muons from heavy quark decays as a novel probe to study the properties of the strongly interacting quark-gluon plasma in high-energy collisions.

Contribution

It introduces a new method involving electron-muon correlations to investigate the quark-gluon plasma, incorporating Langevin dynamics and hydrodynamic evolution.

Findings

Significant quenching of the away-side peak indicates strong heavy quark energy loss.

The method is feasible for detection at RHIC and LHC.

Results suggest the drag force on heavy quarks is substantial in sQGP.

Abstract

As a new and clean probe to the strongly interacting quark-gluon plasma (sQGP), we propose an azimuthal correlation of an electron and a muon which originate from the semileptonic decay of charm and bottom quarks. By solving the Langevin equation for the heavy quarks under the hydrodynamic evolution of the hot plasma, we show that substantial quenching of the away-side peak in the electron-muon correlation can be seen if the sQGP drag force acting on heavy quarks is large enough as suggested from the gauge/gravity correspondence. The effect could be detected in high-energy heavy-ion collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and the Large Hadron Collider.