Tests of model of color reconnection and a search for glueballs using gluon jets with a rapidity gap

TL;DR

This study investigates color reconnection effects in gluon jets with rapidity gaps using various QCD models and searches for glueball-like particles, finding disfavor for some models and no evidence for glueballs.

Contribution

It provides the first experimental tests of color reconnection models in gluon jets with rapidity gaps and searches for glueballs in high-energy e+e- collisions.

Findings

Rathsman and Ariadne models require large cutoff parameters, degrading overall data description.

Color reconnection models tested are generally disfavored by the data.

No evidence found for glueball-like objects in gluon jets.

Abstract

Gluon jets with a mean energy of 22 GeV and purity of 95% are selected from hadronic Z0 decay events produced in e+e- annihilations. A subsample of these jets is identified which exhibits a large gap in the rapidity distribution of particles within the jet. After imposing the requirement of a rapidity gap, the gluon jet purity is 86%. These jets are observed to demonstrate a high degree of sensitivity to the presence of color reconnection, i.e. higher order QCD processes affecting the underlying color structure. We use our data to test three QCD models which include a simulation of color reconnection: one in the Ariadne Monte Carlo, one in the Herwig Monte Carlo, and the other by Rathsman in the Pythia Monte Carlo. We find the Rathsman and Ariadne color reconnection models can describe our gluon jet measurements only if very large values are used for the cutoff parameters which serve to terminate the parton showers, and that the description of inclusive Z0 data is significantly degraded in this case. We conclude that color reconnection as implemented by these two models is disfavored. The signal from the Herwig color reconnection model is less clear and we do not obtain a definite conclusion concerning this model. In a separate study, we follow recent theoretical suggestions and search for glueball-like objects in the leading part of the gluon jets. No clear evidence is observed for these objects.