Hard Substructure of Quenched Jets: a Monte Carlo Study

TL;DR

This study investigates how different jet quenching mechanisms in quark-gluon plasma affect the substructure of quenched jets using Monte Carlo simulations, with implications for interpreting heavy-ion collision data.

Contribution

It compares three jet quenching scenarios and demonstrates their distinct impacts on jet substructure, aligning one scenario with experimental observations.

Findings

Different quenching mechanisms uniquely modify jet substructure.

Simulations based on in-medium virtuality gain match experimental data.

First two scenarios produce similar shower modifications but differ in subjet momentum balance.

Abstract

Modification of the hard jet substructure in terms of the Soft Drop jet grooming algorithm observables is studied for three different scenarios of jet quenching in a quark-gluon plasma: i) an explicit enhancement of the parton splitting functions, ii) increased soft gluon emissions induced by an in-medium virtuality gain, and iii) energy loss due to a drag force. Despite the fact that first two scenarios both correspond to a radiative energy loss mechanism and lead to similar modifications of parton showers, they are shown to have very different impacts on the momentum balance of hard subjets. Simulations for heavy-ion collisions based on the second scenario are presented and found to be in a good agreement with the experimental data.