Jet Observables of Parton Energy Loss in High-Energy Nuclear Collisions

Ben-Wei Zhang

Published 2009-07-15, updated 2009-09-25Version 2

While strong attenuation of single particle production and particle correlations has provided convincing evidence for large parton energy loss in the QGP, its application to jet tomography has inherent limitations due to the inclusive nature of the measurements. Generalization of this suppression to full jet observables leads to an unbiased, more differential and thus powerful approach to determining the characteristics of the hot QCD medium created in high-energy nuclear collisions. In this article we report on recent theoretical progress in calculating jet shapes and the related jet cross sections in the presence of QGP-induced parton energy loss. (i) A theoretical model of intra-jet energy flow in heavy-ion collisions is discussed. (ii) Realistic numerical simulations demonstrate the nuclear modification factor $R_{AA}(p_T)$ evolves continuously with the jet cone size $R^{\max}$ or the acceptance cut $\omega_{\min}$ - a novel feature of jet quenching. The anticipated broadening of jets is subtle and most readily manifested in the periphery of the cone for smaller cone radii.