The Role of QCD Monopoles in Jet Quenching

TL;DR

This paper investigates how QCD monopoles influence jet quenching in quark-gluon plasma, showing that monopoles significantly affect jet suppression and anisotropy, especially near the critical temperature, with results aligning well with experimental data.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed calculation of monopole effects on jet quenching using the BDMPS framework and hydrodynamic backgrounds, highlighting their importance near the critical temperature.

Findings

Good agreement with experimental $R_\text{AA}$ and $v_2$ data.

Event-by-event fluctuations are not essential for $R_\text{AA}$ and $v_2$.

Monopole effects are predicted to be larger at lower RHIC energies.

Abstract

QCD monopoles are magnetically charged quasiparticles whose Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) at $T<T_c$ creates electric confinement and flux tubes. The "magnetic scenario" of QCD proposes that scattering on the non-condensed component of the monopole ensemble at $T>T_c$ is responsible for the unusual kinetic properties of QGP. In this paper, we study the contribution of the monopoles to jet quenching phenomenon, using the BDMPS framework and hydrodynamic backgrounds. In the lowest order for cross sections, we calculate the nuclear modification factor, $R_\text{AA},$ and azimuthal anisotropy, $v_2$, of jets, as well as the dijet asymmetry, $A_j$, and compare those to the available data. We find relatively good agreement with experiment when using realistic hydrodynamic backgrounds. In addition, we find that event-by-event fluctuations are not necessary to reproduce $R_\text{AA}$ and $v_2$ data, but play a role in $A_j$. Since the monopole-induced effects are maximal at $T\approx T_c$, we predict that their role should be significantly larger, relative to quarks and gluons, at lower RHIC energies.