Falling Strings and Light Quark Jet Quenching at LHC

TL;DR

This paper investigates light quark jet quenching at the LHC using AdS/CFT, modeling energy loss with falling strings, and compares theoretical predictions with experimental data, highlighting areas for further refinement.

Contribution

It introduces a phenomenological model for light quark energy loss based on falling strings in AdS/CFT and compares it with LHC data.

Findings

Linear path dependence of energy loss.

Qualitative agreement with experimental R_{AA} data.

Discrepancies suggest higher order corrections are needed.

Abstract

We explore phenomenological signatures of light quark jet quenching within the AdS/CFT correspondence. Numerical studies of the instantaneous energy loss of light quarks, modeled as falling strings, suggest a linear path dependence. We propose a phenomenological model for the energy loss and use it to compute the nuclear modification factor $R_{AA}$ for light quarks in an expanding plasma with Glauber initial conditions. The results are compared to the light hadron $R_{AA}$ data at the LHC and, although they show qualitative agreement, the quantitative disagreement we found motivated the exploration of effects from higher order derivative corrections to $AdS_5$ on this observable.