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Publication
A Simultaneous Description of Hadron and Jet Suppression in Heavy Ion Collisions
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Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
We present a global fit to all data on the suppression of high energy jets
and high energy hadrons in the most central heavy ion collisions at the LHC for
two different collision energies, within a hybrid strong/weak coupling
quenching model. Even though the measured suppression factors for hadrons and
jets differ significantly from one another and appear to asymptote to different
values in the high energy limit, we obtain a simultaneous description of all
these data after constraining the value of a single model parameter. We use our
model to investigate the origin of the difference between the observed
suppression of jets and hadrons and relate it, quantitatively, to the observed
modification of the jet fragmentation function in jets that have been modified
by passage through the medium produced in heavy ion collisions. In particular,
the observed increase in the fraction of hard fragments in medium-modified
jets, which indicates that jets with the fewest hardest fragments lose the
least energy, corresponds quantitatively to the observed difference between the
suppression of hadrons and jets. We argue that a harder fragmentation pattern
for jets with a given energy after quenching is a generic feature of any
mechanism for the interaction between jets and the medium that they traverse
that yields a larger suppression for wider jets. We also compare the results of
our global fit to LHC data to measurements of the suppression of high energy
hadrons in RHIC collisions, and find that with its parameter chosen to fit the
LHC data our model is inconsistent with the RHIC data at the $3\sigma$ level,
suggesting that hard probes interact more strongly with the less hot
quark-gluon plasma produced at RHIC.