Universal Flow-Driven Conical Emission in Ultrarelativistic Heavy-Ion Collisions

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that the double-peak structure in soft-hard hadron correlations in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions can result from averaging over many jet events in an expanding medium, not solely from Mach cone effects.

Contribution

It reveals that the conical emission pattern can be explained without invoking Mach cones, emphasizing the role of event averaging in a transversally expanding background.

Findings

Double-peak structure can arise from event averaging, not just Mach cones.

Jet-induced away-side yield is independent of energy-momentum deposition details.

Experimental tests can compare correlations from heavy-flavor and light-flavor jets.

Abstract

The double-peak structure observed in soft-hard hadron correlations is commonly interpreted as a signature for a Mach cone generated by a supersonic jet interacting with the hot and dense medium created in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions. We show that it can also arise due to averaging over many jet events in a transversally expanding background. We find that the jet-induced away-side yield does not depend on the details of the energy-momentum deposition in the plasma, the jet velocity, or the system size. Our claim can be experimentally tested by comparing soft-hard correlations induced by heavy-flavor jets with those generated by light-flavor jets.