Forward quark jet-nucleus scattering in a light-front Hamiltonian approach

TL;DR

This paper uses a light-front Hamiltonian approach to simulate quark jet scattering on a high-energy nucleus, revealing effects like transverse distribution changes and energy loss due to gluon emissions, advancing non-perturbative QCD studies.

Contribution

It introduces a real-time, light-front Hamiltonian simulation method for quark-nucleus scattering, incorporating sub-eikonal effects and finite longitudinal momenta.

Findings

Significant transverse coordinate distribution modifications.

Observable quark energy loss via gluon emissions.

Potential for non-perturbative QCD analysis.

Abstract

We investigate the scattering of a quark jet on a high-energy heavy nucleus using the time-dependent light-front Hamiltonian approach. We simulate a real-time evolution of the quark in a strong classical color field of the relativistic nucleus, described as the Color Glass Condensate. We study the sub-eikonal effect by letting the quark jet carry realistic finite longitudinal momenta, and we find sizeable changes on the transverse coordinate distribution of the quark. We also observe the energy loss of the quark through gluon emissions in the $\ket{q}+\ket{qg}$ Fock space. This approach provides us with an opportunity to study scattering processes from non-perturbative aspects.