Energy Correlators from Partons to Hadrons: Unveiling the Dynamics of the Strong Interactions with Archival ALEPH Data

TL;DR

This paper uses archival ALEPH data to perform high-resolution measurements of energy flux correlations, revealing detailed QCD dynamics from partons to hadrons and achieving precise data-theory agreement.

Contribution

It resurrects and analyzes thirty-year-old ALEPH data to measure energy flux correlations at high angular resolution, unveiling the full spectrum of QCD phenomena including flux-tube excitations and confinement transitions.

Findings

First measurement of the full energy flux correlator spectrum.

Achieved percent-level agreement with theoretical predictions.

Unveiled new phenomena in confinement transitions.

Abstract

Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) is a remarkably rich theory exhibiting numerous emergent degrees of freedom, from flux tubes to hadrons. Their description in terms of the underlying quarks and gluons of the QCD Lagrangian remains a central challenge of modern physics. Colliders offer a unique opportunity to probe these phenomena experimentally: high energy partons produced from the QCD vacuum excite these emergent degrees, imprinting their dynamics in correlations in asymptotic energy flux. Decoding these correlations requires measurements with exceptional angular resolution, beyond that achieved in previous measurements. Recent progress has enabled precision calculations of energy flux on charged particles alone, allowing data-theory comparisons for measurements using high resolution tracking detectors. In this Letter, we resurrect thirty-year-old data from the ALEPH tracker, and perform a high angular resolution measurement of the two-point correlation of energy flux, probing QCD over three orders of magnitude in scale in a single measurement. Our measurement unveils for the first time the full spectrum of the correlator, including light-ray quasi-particle states, flux-tube excitations, and their transitions into confined hadrons. We compare our measurement with record precision theoretical predictions, achieving percent level agreement, and revealing interesting new phenomena in the confinement transitions. More broadly, we highlight the immense potential of this newly unlocked archival data set, the so called "recycling frontier", and emphasize synergies with ongoing and future collider experiments.