Periodic Reporting for period 1 - JetT (Jet Tomography)
Berichtszeitraum: 2021-10-01 bis 2023-09-30
In this project, I propose to construct a first-principle description of the interaction between hadronic jets and the evolving nuclear matter created in experiments on heavy-ion collisions (HIC). The idea of using energetic particles for medium tomography has attracted significant attention in recent years. However, all current theoretical approaches are either lacking sensitivity to the medium motion and in-medium fluctuations or are based on empirical models. Combining the machinery of perturbative Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) with insights from phenomenological models, here I construct a comprehensive description of the jet-matter interactions which will allow describing the process taking place at such large scale facilities as the LHC and RHIC.
The main scientific objectives of the JetT project read:
1: Derive the effects of the medium motion and hydrodynamic gradients on how energetic quarks and gluons lose their energy penetrating the quark-gluon plasma (QGP);
2: Construct recursive relation for energy loss amplitudes including the effects of medium motion and resum the corresponding perturbative series;
3: Consider how the medium response to propagating quarks and gluons;
The main scientific objectives of the JetT project read:
1: Derive the effects of the medium motion and hydrodynamic gradients on how energetic quarks and gluons lose their energy penetrating the quark-gluon plasma (QGP);
2: Construct recursive relation for energy loss amplitudes including the effects of medium motion and resum the corresponding perturbative series;
3: Consider how the medium response to propagating quarks and gluons;
Within this project I derived the closed form of the jet broadening distribution and medium-induced radiation spectrum in anisotropic flowing matter at the first order in opacity, and studied the recursive structure of the contributions at higher orders in opacity. As of now, the recursive relations were solved in the presence of the hydrodynamic gradients (both for the jet broadening and medium-induced radiation) and in flowing matter (only for the case of the jet broadening). I also developed the tools needed to include the medium response into the resulting formalism, and continue integrating these new features into the novel jet quenching formalism developed here. Some of the results have already been used for the simplest qualitative phenomenological studies, advancing the theoretical understanding of the HIC experiments. These studies resulted in three published papers, two unpublished pre-prints (recently submitted to journals), and a set of projects extending and/or going beyond the scope of this project.
In this project, I made a large step towards full-fledge jet tomography in HIC, which would eventually allow using hadronic jets to probe the evolution of QCD matter produced in HIC experiments. The formalism developed here takes into account the medium flow and anisotropy, essentially boosting the description from the non-realistic level of a jet going through a static break to the realistic level of a jet going through an evolving droplet of matter. The main impact of these results is the multiple new opportunities to qualitatively describe the dynamics of the QCD matter in HIC, which will allow accessing some of the most fundamental properties of the nuclear matter and learning how it forms from elementary constituents.