Three-hadron angular correlations from pQCD at RHIC and LHC

TL;DR

This paper investigates three-hadron azimuthal correlations in high-energy collisions at RHIC and LHC, using pQCD calculations and energy loss models, finding characteristic angular peaks and agreement with experimental data.

Contribution

It introduces a pQCD-based approach to study three-hadron correlations including parton energy loss effects, providing new insights into plasma characterization.

Findings

Observation of two away side peaks at 2pi/3 and 4pi/3

Good agreement with PHENIX preliminary data

Analysis of energy loss dependence on angular correlations

Abstract

We study three-hadron azimuthal angular correlations in high energy proton-proton and central nucleus-nucleus collisions at RHIC and LHC at mid-rapidity. We use the LO parton matrix elements for 2 \rightarrow 3 processes and include the effect of parton energy loss in the Quark-Gluon Plasma using the modified fragmentation function approach. For the case when the produced hadrons have either same or not too different momenta, we observe two away side peaks at 2pi/3 and 4pi/3. We consider the dependence of the angular correlations on energy loss parameters that have been used in studies of single inclusive hadron production at RHIC. Our results on the angular dependence of the cross section agree well with preliminary data by the PHENIX collaboration. We comment on the possible contribution of 2 \rightarrow 3 processes to di-hadron angular correlations and how a comparison of the two processes may help characterize the plasma further.