Parton energy loss at LHC tests for a strongly coupled medium

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new measure for jet transverse momentum loss in heavy-ion collisions at the LHC, which can distinguish between strongly and weakly interacting quark-gluon plasma media.

Contribution

It proposes a novel, straightforward measure of jet energy loss directly comparable to R_AA, and demonstrates its potential to probe the nature of the quark-gluon plasma.

Findings

Current data may slightly favor a strongly interacting medium.

The proposed measure has small statistical uncertainties with potential for systematic improvements.

Estimated jet quenching parameter qhat aligns with previous studies under weakly interacting assumptions.

Abstract

We construct a measure of transverse momentum loss of jets in nuclear collisions at LHC directly using measurements of jet cross sections in PbPb and pp collisions. The proposal is shown to be equivalent to R_AA and is equally straightforward to construct. Using data from the ATLAS collaboration at two different collision energies, we show that the proposed measure has small statistical uncertainties. We argue that systematic errors can be easily improved over our estimates by the experimental collaboration to such an extent that it directly probes whether the jet-medium interaction is due to a strongly interacting medium or a weakly interacting plasma. We argue that the current data may marginally favour a strongly interacting medium. On the other hand, assuming that the medium is weakly interacting, we are able to provide estimates of the jet quenching parameter qhat which are in rough agreement with previously reported estimates.