Towards a qualitative hadron-parton correspondence in the nuclear modification factor

TL;DR

This paper introduces a method to relate hadron and quark component nuclear modification factors in high-energy nuclear collisions, revealing differences and effects like the dead cone effect through simulation.

Contribution

It presents a novel approach to establish a qualitative correspondence between hadron and quark nuclear modification factors using a cascade model.

Findings

Hadron nuclear modification factor is generally smaller than its quark component.

The dead cone effect is more evident in quarks and mesons than in baryons.

Simulation results support the proposed correspondence.

Abstract

In this work, we propose a method to show the correspondence between hadron and its quark component nuclear modification factors. A parton and hadron cascade model PACIAE based on the PYTHIA6.4 is employed to calculate the hadron and its quark component nuclear modification factors in the 0-5\% most central $Pb+Pb$ collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$=2.76 TeV. It turns out that the hadron nuclear modification factor is usually smaller than that of its quark component. On the other hand, it is shown in our study that the "dead cone effect" is more likely to be identified with the quarks and mesons but not with the baryon states obviously.