Jets as a probe of the quark-gluon plasma

TL;DR

This paper discusses how jets are used to probe the quark-gluon plasma in heavy-ion collisions, highlighting challenges in interpretation and proposing data-driven, model-independent approaches for better understanding.

Contribution

It provides a personal perspective on the challenges of using jets to study the quark-gluon plasma and suggests data-driven methods to overcome modeling biases.

Findings

Jet modifications are complex and influenced by biases.

Model studies help clarify non-intuitive effects.

Data-driven approaches offer a promising path forward.

Abstract

The suppression and modification of high-energy objects, like jets, in heavy-ion collisions provide an important window to access the degrees of freedom of the quark-gluon plasma on different length scales. Despite increasingly precise and differential measurements of the properties of jets in heavy-ion collisions, however, it has remained challenging to use jets to make unambiguous and model-independent statements about the quark-gluon plasma. Here I will give a personal take on some origins of these challenges, including the difficulty of modelling and biases from jet selection that obfuscate the direct interpretation of jet modification measurements. I will discuss a few model studies that have helped to disentangle the source of non-intuitive effects in measurements, and finally highlight data-driven approaches as an interesting opportunity toward studying the quark-gluon plasma in a model-independent way using jets.