2006/07/19 by Thorsten Renk · 7 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #High-Energy Particle Collisions Research #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevc.74.034906
published as Phys.Rev.C74:034906,2006 · 5 pages, 2 figures, updated references
arxiv created 2006/07/19 · openalex publication_date 2006/09/29 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Hard pQCD processes taking place in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions are a well-calibrated probe. It is believed that the interaction with the surrounding medium of outgoing partons from a hard vertex is capable of revealing details of the medium. We demonstrate that correlation measurements of hard photon-hadron back-to-back coincidences are a tool suitable for extracting such tomographic information. Introducing the concept of averaged energy loss probability distributions, we first argue that almost no information about details of the medium evolution is reflected in the nuclear suppression factor RAA. Thus, a wide variety of jet quenching scenarios and geometries are compatible with the measured data. This problem can be overcome by a \ensuremathγ-hadron correlation measurement. We show that averaged probability distributions for quarks are accessible experimentally, and we sketch an analysis procedure capable of distinguishing different energy loss scenarios leading to the same nuclear suppression factor.