Imaging the wakes of jets with energy-energy-energy correlators
As the partons in a high energy jet propagate through the droplet of quark-gluon plasma (QGP) produced in a heavy-ion collision they lose energy to, kick, and are kicked by the medium. The resulting modifications to the parton shower encode information about the microscopic nature of QGP. A direct c...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Springer Berlin Heidelberg
2025
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/157947 |
| _version_ | 1824458293351809024 |
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| author | Bossi, Hannah Kudinoor, Arjun S. Moult, Ian Pablos, Daniel Rai, Ananya Rajagopal, Krishna |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Laboratory for Nuclear Science |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Laboratory for Nuclear Science Bossi, Hannah Kudinoor, Arjun S. Moult, Ian Pablos, Daniel Rai, Ananya Rajagopal, Krishna |
| author_sort | Bossi, Hannah |
| collection | MIT |
| description | As the partons in a high energy jet propagate through the droplet of quark-gluon plasma (QGP) produced in a heavy-ion collision they lose energy to, kick, and are kicked by the medium. The resulting modifications to the parton shower encode information about the microscopic nature of QGP. A direct consequence, however, is that the momentum and energy lost by the parton shower are gained by the medium and, since QGP is a strongly coupled liquid, this means that the jet excites a wake in the droplet of QGP. After freezeout, this wake becomes soft hadrons with net momentum in the jet direction meaning that what an experimentalist later reconstructs as a jet includes hadrons originating from both the modified parton shower and its wake. This has made it challenging to find experimental observables that provide an unambiguous view of the dynamical response of a droplet of QGP to a jet shooting through it. Recent years have seen significant substantial advances in the theoretical and experimental understanding of the substructure of jets, in particular, using correlation functions, E n → 1 ⋯ E n → k , of the energy flux operator in proton-proton collisions and, recently, in heavy-ion collisions. So far, such studies have focused primarily on the two-point correlator, which allows for the identification of the angular scale of the underlying dynamics. Higher-point correlators hold the promise of mapping out the dynamics themselves. In this paper we perform the first study of the shape-dependent three-point energy-energy-energy correlator in heavy-ion collisions. Using the Hybrid Model to simulate the interactions of high energy jets with the QGP medium, we show that the three-point correlator presents us with a striking new opportunity. We find that hadrons originating from wakes are the dominant contribution to the three-point correlator in the kinematic regime in which the three points are well-separated in angle, forming a roughly equilateral triangle. This equilateral region of the correlator is far from the region populated by collinear vacuum emissions, making it a canvas on which jet wakes are laid out, where experimentalists can map their shapes. Our work provides a key step towards the systematic use of energy correlators to image and unravel the dynamical response of a droplet of QGP that has been probed by a passing jet, and motivates numerous experimental and theoretical studies. |
| first_indexed | 2025-02-19T04:23:35Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/157947 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2025-02-19T04:23:35Z |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| publisher | Springer Berlin Heidelberg |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1579472025-01-07T03:23:59Z Imaging the wakes of jets with energy-energy-energy correlators Bossi, Hannah Kudinoor, Arjun S. Moult, Ian Pablos, Daniel Rai, Ananya Rajagopal, Krishna Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Laboratory for Nuclear Science Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Theoretical Physics As the partons in a high energy jet propagate through the droplet of quark-gluon plasma (QGP) produced in a heavy-ion collision they lose energy to, kick, and are kicked by the medium. The resulting modifications to the parton shower encode information about the microscopic nature of QGP. A direct consequence, however, is that the momentum and energy lost by the parton shower are gained by the medium and, since QGP is a strongly coupled liquid, this means that the jet excites a wake in the droplet of QGP. After freezeout, this wake becomes soft hadrons with net momentum in the jet direction meaning that what an experimentalist later reconstructs as a jet includes hadrons originating from both the modified parton shower and its wake. This has made it challenging to find experimental observables that provide an unambiguous view of the dynamical response of a droplet of QGP to a jet shooting through it. Recent years have seen significant substantial advances in the theoretical and experimental understanding of the substructure of jets, in particular, using correlation functions, E n → 1 ⋯ E n → k , of the energy flux operator in proton-proton collisions and, recently, in heavy-ion collisions. So far, such studies have focused primarily on the two-point correlator, which allows for the identification of the angular scale of the underlying dynamics. Higher-point correlators hold the promise of mapping out the dynamics themselves. In this paper we perform the first study of the shape-dependent three-point energy-energy-energy correlator in heavy-ion collisions. Using the Hybrid Model to simulate the interactions of high energy jets with the QGP medium, we show that the three-point correlator presents us with a striking new opportunity. We find that hadrons originating from wakes are the dominant contribution to the three-point correlator in the kinematic regime in which the three points are well-separated in angle, forming a roughly equilateral triangle. This equilateral region of the correlator is far from the region populated by collinear vacuum emissions, making it a canvas on which jet wakes are laid out, where experimentalists can map their shapes. Our work provides a key step towards the systematic use of energy correlators to image and unravel the dynamical response of a droplet of QGP that has been probed by a passing jet, and motivates numerous experimental and theoretical studies. 2025-01-06T22:42:44Z 2025-01-06T22:42:44Z 2024-12-10 2025-01-05T04:12:12Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/157947 Bossi, H., Kudinoor, A.S., Moult, I. et al. Imaging the wakes of jets with energy-energy-energy correlators. J. High Energ. Phys. 2024, 73 (2024). PUBLISHER_CC en https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP12(2024)073 Journal of High Energy Physics Creative Commons Attribution https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ The Author(s) application/pdf Springer Berlin Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg |
| spellingShingle | Bossi, Hannah Kudinoor, Arjun S. Moult, Ian Pablos, Daniel Rai, Ananya Rajagopal, Krishna Imaging the wakes of jets with energy-energy-energy correlators |
| title | Imaging the wakes of jets with energy-energy-energy correlators |
| title_full | Imaging the wakes of jets with energy-energy-energy correlators |
| title_fullStr | Imaging the wakes of jets with energy-energy-energy correlators |
| title_full_unstemmed | Imaging the wakes of jets with energy-energy-energy correlators |
| title_short | Imaging the wakes of jets with energy-energy-energy correlators |
| title_sort | imaging the wakes of jets with energy energy energy correlators |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/157947 |
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