Flavor-independent yield of high-$p_T$ hadrons from nuclear collisions

TL;DR

This paper investigates high-$p_T$ hadron production in nuclear collisions, revealing flavor-independent suppression at high transverse momentum due to color transparency effects, with implications for understanding quark flavor dependence.

Contribution

It demonstrates that color transparency leads to flavor-independent nuclear suppression of high-$p_T$ hadrons when hadron formation occurs outside the medium, highlighting conditions for universality.

Findings

Color transparency causes flavor-independent suppression at high $p_T$.

The in-medium broadening rate $$ varies with quark flavor, decreasing for heavy quarks.

Universal suppression occurs when hadron formation is outside the medium.

Abstract

Data on high-$p_T$ hadron production in heavy ion collisions at Feynman $x_F=0$ indicate at universality of the observed nuclear suppression. Our analysis of the production mechanisms demonstrates important role of the color transparency effects which make the survival probability of a quark-antiquark dipole independent of the quark flavor, provided that the hadron wave function is formed outside the medium. The latter condition imposes restrictions on the range of $p_T$, which should be sufficiently high to make the nuclear suppression universal. We also found that the in-medium broadening rate $\hat q$ (frequently called transport coefficient) significantly depends on the quark flavor, diminishing for heavy quarks.