Radiative Energy Loss in a Temperature-Evolving QGP with Dynamical Constituents

TL;DR

This paper develops a theoretical framework to calculate radiative energy loss of partons in a dynamically evolving quark-gluon plasma, accounting for temperature changes over space and time, applicable to both single partons and jets.

Contribution

It introduces a formalism that incorporates temperature evolution and dynamical constituents into radiative energy loss calculations in a finite QCD medium.

Findings

Provides a flexible kernel for different temperature profiles.

Unifies treatment of single partons and jets in energy loss calculations.

Enables more accurate QGP tomography with evolving medium conditions.

Abstract

We present a theoretical formalism for calculating first-order-in-opacity radiative energy loss that incorporates the spatial and temporal temperature evolution of the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) in a finite-size QCD medium with dynamical (i.e., moving) constituents. The derived expressions allow for arbitrary temperature profiles, enabling detailed evaluations of radiative energy loss across different medium-evolution scenarios. Importantly, the resulting kernel applies to both single partons (R = 0) and jets (R > 0) via an out-of-cone selection, providing a unified starting point for precision QGP tomography.