Measurement of the charged-particle-jet transverse-momentum fraction carried by prompt and non-prompt J/$\psi$ mesons in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV

TL;DR

This paper measures how much of the jet's transverse momentum is carried by prompt and non-prompt J/ψ mesons in proton-proton collisions at 13 TeV, providing insights into quarkonium production and jet fragmentation.

Contribution

It presents the first measurement of the charged-particle-jet $z^{ch}$ distribution for prompt and non-prompt J/ψ at 13 TeV, comparing results with pQCD and PYTHIA 8 simulations.

Findings

PYTHIA 8 reproduces data well for $z^{ch}<0.9$

Simulations overestimate J/ψ fraction near $z^{ch} o 1$

Highlights challenges in modeling low-momentum jet hadronization.

Abstract

The measurement of the transverse-momentum fraction ($z^{\rm ch}$) carried by prompt and non-prompt J/$\psi$ in charged-particle jets in proton--proton collisions with a center-of-mass energy $\sqrt{s}= 13$ TeV is reported by the ALICE Collaboration at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The measurement is based on a Transition Radiation Detector triggered data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of $\mathcal{L} = 1.63\pm0.03$ pb$^{-1}$. Inclusive J/$\psi$ mesons with transverse momentum ($p_{\rm T}$) above 1 GeV/$c$ are reconstructed at midrapidity through the electron--positron decay channel. The prompt and non-prompt J/$\psi$ contributions are separated using the secondary vertices from beauty-hadron decays. Jets are reconstructed from J/$\psi$-meson candidates and charged particles using the anti-$k_{\rm T}$ algorithm with jet resolution parameter $R = 0.4$ in the pseudorapidity range $|\eta_{\text{jet}}| < 0.5$. The distribution of the charged-particle jet $p_{\rm T}$ fraction carried by the prompt and non-prompt J/$\psi$ mesons, $z^{\rm ch}$, is measured in the range $0.3 < z^{\rm ch} \leq 1.0$ for the jet-$ p_{\rm T}$ range $7 < p_{\rm T}^{\rm jet} < 15$ GeV/$c$. The measured $z^{\rm ch}$ distributions for prompt and non-prompt J/$\psi$ are compared to pQCD calculations and PYTHIA 8 simulations. Prompt and non-prompt J/$\psi$ production within charged-particle jets are found to be qualitatively well reproduced by PYTHIA 8 for $z^{\rm ch}<0.9$, however, as $z^{\rm ch}$ approaches one, the simulations overshoot the measured data, indicating an overestimation of the fraction of isolated J/$\psi$. This observed tension between data and simulations in the highest $z^{\rm ch}$ bins reflects the challenge of simulating hadronization of low-momentum jets.