Jet conversion and quark coalescence in relativistic heavy-ion collisions

One of the most interesting conclusions from the experimental results in relativistic heavy-ion collisions is that quark and gluon jets produced in initial hard scattering tend to lose significant amount of energies in the produced quark-gluon plasma, leading to the suppressed production of high transverse momentum hadrons. Model studies have indicated that energetic jets traversing the quark-gluon plasma not only lose their energies but also can undergo conversions between gluon and quark jets as well as between quark jets of different flavors. The resulting net conversion of quark to gluon jets reduces the difference between the nuclear modification factors for quark and gluon jets in central heavy-ion collisions and thus enhances the ratio of produced protons and pions at high transverse momenta. Furthermore, as jets leave the quark-gluon plasma, they can be converted to hadrons by coalescing with partons in the quark-gluon plasma, leading to an enhanced production of hadrons of intermediate transverse momenta. Comparisons of results from these model studies with experimental data from the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC) and predictions for heavy-ion collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) are presented. PACS 12.38.Mh-Quark-gluon plasma. PACS 25.75.-q- Relativistic heavy-ion collisions. Societ Italiana di Fisica.

Jet conversion and quark coalescence in relativistic heavy-ion collisions Conference Paper