An EFT approach to Color decoherence in jet quenching

TL;DR

This paper employs an effective field theory approach to analyze color decoherence in jet quenching within dense nuclear media, revealing a unified parameter governing both decoherence and LPM effects, with implications for heavy ion collision phenomenology.

Contribution

It introduces a novel EFT-based framework that explicitly calculates the angular scale and renormalization structure of color decoherence in jet quenching, unifying key effects under a single parameter.

Findings

Identifies the angular scale $ heta_c$ controlling decoherence.

Shows both LPM effect and decoherence depend on $ ext{sqrt}( ext{hat q} L) R$.

Provides a factorized approach to include interference effects in jet observables.

Abstract

We use the EFT developed in \cite{Mehtar-Tani:2025xxd}, to understand the interference driven phenomenon of color decoherence in inclusive jet production in a dense nuclear medium such as Nuclei or Quark Gluon Plasma. Using the factorization formula in \cite{Mehtar-Tani:2024smp,Mehtar-Tani:2025xxd}, expressed as a series of multi-sub-jet operators, we define and calculate the contribution of the two sub-jet effective operator. This explicitly reveals the emergent angular scale $\theta_c$ that controls color decoherence as well an intricate renormalization group structure for the factorized functions. We show that for a jet of radius R in a medium of size L characterized by a jet quenching parameter $\hat q$, both the LPM effect and color decoherence are controlled by a single dimensionless parameter $\sqrt{\hat q L}LR$ and therefore are equally important for phenomenology. This paper shows how interference driven emergent effects can be included in a factorized framework for computing jet observables in heavy ion collisions.