Impact of scale, nuclear PDF and temperature variations on the interpretation of medium-modified jet production data from the LHC

TL;DR

This study investigates how variations in scale, nuclear PDFs, and medium temperature affect the interpretation of medium-modified jet production data from the LHC, using simulations compared to experimental data.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of uncertainties in jet modification modeling related to nuclear PDFs and medium parameters, enhancing understanding of jet-medium interactions.

Findings

Nuclear PDFs significantly influence jet suppression predictions.

Medium temperature variations impact jet structure observables.

Uncertainties in perturbative scales affect the interpretation of jet modification data.

Abstract

In this paper we present a study of in-medium jet modifications performed with JEWEL and PYTHIA 6.4, focusing on the uncertainties related to variations of the perturbative scales and nuclear parton distribution functions (PDFs) and on the impact of the initial and crossover temperature variations of the medium. The simulations are compared to LHC data for the jet spectrum and the nuclear modification factor. We assess the interplay between the choice of nuclear PDFs and different medium parameters and study the impact of nuclear PDFs and the medium on the jet structure via the Lund plane.