Contrasting Features of Parton Energy Loss in Heavy-ion Collisions at RHIC and the LHC

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Marshall, Thomas, Suh, Philip, Wang, Gang, Huang, Huan Zhong
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2023
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author Marshall, Thomas
Suh, Philip
Wang, Gang
Huang, Huan Zhong
author_facet Marshall, Thomas
Suh, Philip
Wang, Gang
Huang, Huan Zhong
contents Energetic quarks and gluons lose energy as they traverse the hot and dense medium created in high-energy heavy-ion collisions at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The nuclear modification factor ($R_{AA}$) of leading particles quantifies parton energy loss in such collisions, with the particle spectrum in $p+p$ collisions as a reference. Previous $R_{AA}$ measurements at RHIC energies have revealed an approximately constant trend at high transverse momenta ($p_{T}$), implying a scenario where parton energy loss, $Δp_{T}$, scales proportionally with $p_{T}$, a feature naively expected from energy loss dynamics in elastic collisions. In this study, we investigate the LHC $R_{AA}$ measurements which exhibit a pronounced $p_{T}$ dependence of $R_{AA}$ for various particle species, and our analysis attributes this behavior to $Δp_T$ being approximately proportional to $\sqrt{p_{T}}$. These distinct features are consistent with model calculations of dominant radiative energy loss dynamics at the LHC, in contrast to the dominance of collisional energy loss at RHIC. Additionally, the linear increase of fractional energy loss with medium density at different $p_{T}$ magnitudes affirms the previous empirical observation that the magnitude of the energy loss depends mostly on the initial entropy density, with no significant path-length dependence. Implications on the dynamical scenarios of parton energy loss and future experimental investigations will also be discussed.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2310_00024
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Contrasting Features of Parton Energy Loss in Heavy-ion Collisions at RHIC and the LHC
Marshall, Thomas
Suh, Philip
Wang, Gang
Huang, Huan Zhong
Nuclear Theory
High Energy Physics - Experiment
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Nuclear Experiment
Energetic quarks and gluons lose energy as they traverse the hot and dense medium created in high-energy heavy-ion collisions at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The nuclear modification factor ($R_{AA}$) of leading particles quantifies parton energy loss in such collisions, with the particle spectrum in $p+p$ collisions as a reference. Previous $R_{AA}$ measurements at RHIC energies have revealed an approximately constant trend at high transverse momenta ($p_{T}$), implying a scenario where parton energy loss, $Δp_{T}$, scales proportionally with $p_{T}$, a feature naively expected from energy loss dynamics in elastic collisions. In this study, we investigate the LHC $R_{AA}$ measurements which exhibit a pronounced $p_{T}$ dependence of $R_{AA}$ for various particle species, and our analysis attributes this behavior to $Δp_T$ being approximately proportional to $\sqrt{p_{T}}$. These distinct features are consistent with model calculations of dominant radiative energy loss dynamics at the LHC, in contrast to the dominance of collisional energy loss at RHIC. Additionally, the linear increase of fractional energy loss with medium density at different $p_{T}$ magnitudes affirms the previous empirical observation that the magnitude of the energy loss depends mostly on the initial entropy density, with no significant path-length dependence. Implications on the dynamical scenarios of parton energy loss and future experimental investigations will also be discussed.
title Contrasting Features of Parton Energy Loss in Heavy-ion Collisions at RHIC and the LHC
topic Nuclear Theory
High Energy Physics - Experiment
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Nuclear Experiment
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.00024