Systematics of parton fragmentation in $e^+$-$e^-$ and nuclear collisions

TL;DR

This paper combines fragmentation functions and a parton spectrum model to produce minimum-bias fragment distributions, including in-medium modifications, and compares them with experimental data from $e^+$-$e^-$ and nuclear collisions, showing good agreement.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive pQCD-based model that integrates fragmentation functions with in-medium modifications to accurately describe collision data.

Findings

Model reproduces experimental fragment distributions across various collision centralities.

In-medium FF modifications improve agreement with observed spectra.

pQCD provides a good description over a wide kinematic range.

Abstract

Parametrizations of fragmentation functions (FFs) from $e^+$-$e^-$ and p-\=p collisions are combined with a parton spectrum model in a pQCD folding integral to produce minimum-bias {\em fragment distributions}. A model of in-medium FF modification is included. Calculated fragment distributions are compared with {\em hard components} from p-p and Au-Au $p_t$ spectra. Data are well described by pQCD over a large kinematic region for a range of Au-Au centralities.