Jet color chemistry and anomalous baryon production in $AA$-collisions

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel mechanism involving color chemistry in high-energy nuclear collisions, explaining anomalous baryon production at RHIC and LHC energies through specific parton system formations and their fragmentation.

Contribution

It introduces a new theoretical model for baryon production via collinear parton systems in unusual color states, absent in nucleon-nucleon collisions.

Findings

Potentially significant contribution to baryon yields at RHIC and LHC.

Highlights the role of specific color states in parton fragmentation.

Suggests a new mechanism for baryon production in quark-gluon plasma.

Abstract

We study anomalous high-$p_T$ baryon production in $AA$-collisions due to formation of the two parton collinear $gq$ system in the anti-sextet color state for quark jets and $gg$ system in the decuplet/anti-decuplet color states for gluon jets. Fragmentation of these states, which are absent for $NN$-collisions, after escaping from the quark-gluon plasma leads to baryon production. Our qualitative estimates show that this mechanism can be potentially important at RHIC and LHC energies.