arXiv subjects

Hongxi Xing

Publications and source records attributed to Hongxi Xing.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

arXiv2020

Semi-Inclusive Jet Functions and Jet Substructure in $J_{E_T}^{(I)}$ and $J_{E_T}^{(II)}$ Algorithms

Within the framework of Soft Collinear Effective Theory, we present calculations of semi-inclusive jet functions and fragmenting jet functions at next-to-leading order (NLO) for both quark- and gluon-initiated jets, for jet algorithms of $J_{E_T}^{(I)}$ and $J_{E_T}^{(II)}$ where one maximizes a suitable jet function. We demonstrate the consistency of the obtained results with the standard perturbative QCD calculations for $J_{E_T}^{(I)}$ algorithm, while the results for fragmenting jet functions with the $J_{E_T}^{(II)}$ algorithm are new. The renormalization group (RG) equation for both semi-inclusive jet functions and fragmenting jet functions are derived and shown to follow the time-like DGLAP evolution equations, independent of specific jet algorithms. The RG equation can be used to resum single logarithms of the jet size parameter $β$ for highly collimated jets in these algorithms where $β\gg 1$.

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arXiv2019

Flavor hierarchy of jet quenching in relativistic heavy-ion collisions

Relativistic heavy-ion experiments have observed similar quenching effects for (prompt) $D$ mesons compared to charged hadrons for transverse momenta larger than 6-8~GeV, which remains a mystery since heavy quarks typically lose less energies in quark-gluon plasma than light quarks and gluons. Recent measurements of the nuclear modification factors of $B$ mesons and $B$-decayed $D$ mesons by the CMS Collaboration provide a unique opportunity to study the flavor hierarchy of jet quenching. Using a linear Boltzmann transport model combined with hydrodynamics simulation, we study the energy loss and nuclear modification for heavy and light flavor jets in high-energy nuclear collisions. By consistently taking into account both quark and gluon contributions to light and heavy flavor hadron productions within a next-to-leading order perturbative QCD framework, we obtain, for the first time, a satisfactory description of the experimental data on the nuclear modification factors for charged hadrons, $D$ mesons, $B$ mesons and $B$-decayed $D$ mesons simultaneously over a wide range of transverse momenta (8-300~GeV). This presents a solid solution to the flavor puzzle of jet quenching and constitutes a significant step towards the precision study of jet-medium interaction. Our study predicts that at transverse momenta larger than 30-40~GeV, $B$ mesons also exhibit similar suppression effects to charged hadrons and $D$ mesons, which may be tested by future measurements.

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arXiv2019

New approach to the Sivers effect in the collinear twist-3 formalism

The single-transverse spin asymmetry(SSA) for hadron production in the transversely polarized proton scattering receives major contribution from Sivers effect, which can be systematically described within the collinear twist-3 factorization framework in various processes. Conventional method in the evaluation of the Sivers effect known as pole calculation is technically quite different from non-pole calculation which is another method used in evaluating the final state twist-3 effect. In this paper, we extend the non-pole technique to the Sivers effect, and show the consistency with the conventional method through an explicit calculation of $\mathcal{O}(α_s)$ correction in semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering. As a result, we clarify that the conventional pole calculation is implicitly using the equation of motion and the Lorentz invariant relations whose importance became widely known in the non-pole calculation. We also clarify some technical advantages in using the new non-pole method.

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arXiv2019

A global extraction of the jet transport coefficient in cold nuclear matter

Within the framework of the generalized QCD factorization formalism, we perform the first global analysis of the jet transport coefficient ($\hat q$) for cold nuclear matter. The analysis takes into account the world data on transverse momentum broadening in semi-inclusive electron-nucleus deep inelastic scattering, Drell-Yan dilepton and heavy quarkonium production in proton-nucleus collisions, as well as the nuclear modification of the structure functions in deep inelastic scattering, comprising a total of 215 data points from 8 data sets. For the first time, we clarify quantitatively the universality and probing scale dependence of the nuclear medium property as encoded in $\hat q$. We expect that the determined parametrization of $\hat q$ in cold nuclear matter will have significant impact on precise identification of the transport property of hot dense medium created in heavy ion collisions.

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arXiv2019

Jet fragmentation functions for $Z$-tagged jets

Recently the LHCb collaboration has measured both longitudinal and transverse momentum distribution of hadrons produced inside $Z$-tagged jets in proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider. These distributions are commonly referred to as jet fragmentation functions and are characterized by the longitudinal momentum fraction $z_h$ of the jet carried by the hadron and the transverse momentum $j_\perp$ with respect to the jet direction. We derive a QCD formalism within Soft-Collinear Effective Theory to describe these distributions and find that the $z_h$-dependence provides information on standard collinear fragmentation functions, while $j_\perp$-dependence probes transverse momentum dependent (TMD) fragmentation functions. We perform theoretical calculations and compare our results with the LHCb data. We find good agreement for the intermediate $z_h$ region. For $j_\perp$-dependence, we suggest binning in both $z_h$ and $j_\perp$, which would lead to a more direct probing of TMD fragmentation functions.

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arXiv2019

Introduction to the transverse-momentum-weighted technique in the twist-3 collinear factorization approach

The twist-3 collinear factorization framework has drawn much attention in recent decades as a successful approach in describing the data for single spin asymmetries (SSAs). Many SSAs data have been experimentally accumulated in a variety of energies since the first measurement was done in late 70s and it is expected that the future experiments like Electron-Ion collider will provide us with more data. In order to perform a consistent and precise description of the data taken in different kinematic regimes, the scale evolution of the collinear twist-3 functions and the perturbative higher order hard part coefficients are mandatory. In this paper, we introduce the techniques for next-to-leading order (NLO) calculation of transverse-momentum-weighted SSAs, which can be served as a useful tool to derive the QCD evolution equation for twist-3 functions, and to verify the QCD collinear factorization for twist-3 observables at NLO, as well as to obtain the finite NLO hard part coefficients.

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arXiv2018

Revisiting heavy quark radiative energy loss in nuclei within the high-twist approach

We revisit the calculation of multiple parton scattering of a heavy quark in nuclei within the framework of recently improved high-twist factorization formalism, in which gauge invariance is ensured by a delicate setup of the initial partons' transverse momenta. We derive a new result for medium modified heavy quark fragmentation functions in deeply inelastic scattering. It is consistent with the previous calculation of light quark energy loss in the massless limit, but leads to a new correction term in the heavy quark case, which vanishes in the soft gluon radiation limit. We show numerically the significance of the new correction term in the calculation of heavy quark energy loss as compared to previous studies and with soft gluon radiation approximation.

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arXiv2018

Inclusive jet production as a probe of polarized PDFs at a future EIC

We present a detailed phenomenological study of polarized inclusive jet production in electron-proton collisions at a future Electron-Ion Collider (EIC). Our analysis is performed at next-to-leading order in perturbative QCD using the numerical code DISTRESS and includes all relevant partonic channels and resolved photon contributions. We elucidate the role of different kinematic regions in probing different aspects of proton and photon structure and study the impact of the EIC collision energy on the measurement of polarized parton distribution functions.

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arXiv2017

The transverse momentum distribution of hadrons within jets

We study the transverse momentum distribution of hadrons within jets, where the transverse momentum is defined with respect to the standard jet axis. We consider the case where the jet substructure measurement is performed for an inclusive jet sample $pp\to\text{jet}+X$. We demonstrate that this observable provides new opportunities to study transverse momentum dependent fragmentation functions (TMDFFs) which are currently poorly constrained from data, especially for gluons. The factorization of the cross section is obtained within Soft Collinear Effective Theory (SCET), and we show that the relevant TMDFFs are the same as for the more traditional processes semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering (SIDIS) and electron-positron annihilation. Different than in SIDIS, the observable for the in-jet fragmentation does not depend on TMD parton distribution functions which allows for a cleaner and more direct probe of TMDFFs. We present numerical results and compare to available data from the LHC.

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arXiv2017

$J/ψ$ production and polarization within a jet

We study the production and polarization of $J/ψ$ mesons within a jet in proton-proton collisions at the LHC. We define the $J/ψ$-jet fragmentation function as a ratio of differential jet cross sections with and without the reconstructed $J/ψ$ in the jet. We demonstrate that this is a very useful observable to help explore the $J/ψ$ production mechanism, and to differentiate between different NRQCD global fits based on inclusive $J/ψ$ cross sections. Furthermore, we propose to measure the polarization of $J/ψ$ mesons inside the jet, which can provide even more stringent constraints for the heavy quarkonium production mechanism.

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arXiv2017

The spin-dependent quark beam function at NNLO

We calculate the beam function for longitudinally-polarized quarks through next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) in QCD perturbation theory. This is the last missing ingredient needed to apply the factorization theorem for the $N$-jettiness event-shape variable in polarized collisions through the NNLO level. We present all technical details of our derivation. As a by-product of our calculation we provide the first independent check of the previously-obtained unpolarized quark beam function. We anticipate that our result will have phenomenological applications in describing data from polarized collisions.

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arXiv2017

Quenching of vector boson-tagged jets at the LHC

Electroweak boson-tagged jet measurements provide a promising experimental channel to accurately study the physics of jet production and propagation in dense QCD medium. In this talk, we present theoretical predictions for the nuclear-induced attenuation of the differential cross section for isolated photon-tagged and $\rm Z^0$-tagged jet production in heavy ion collisions, and provide theoretical interpretations to the recent LHC data. We demonstrate quantitatively the significance of collisional and radiative energy losses, as revealed in the strong momentum asymmetry $dσ/dx_{VJ}$ and nuclear modification $\rm I_{AA}$ in central lead-lead reactions.

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arXiv2017

Vector boson-tagged jet production in heavy ion collisions at the LHC

Vector boson-tagged jet production in collisions of heavy nuclei opens new opportunities to study parton shower formation and propagation in strongly interacting matter. It has been argued to provide a golden channel that can constrain the energy loss of jets in the quark-gluon plasma created in heavy ion reactions. We present theoretical results for isolated photon-tagged and $Z^0$ boson-tagged jet production in Pb+Pb collisions with $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 5.02$ TeV at the LHC. Specifically, we evaluate the transverse momentum imbalance ${\rm x_{JV}}$ distribution and nuclear modification factor ${\rm I_{AA}}$ of tagged jets and compare our theoretical calculations to recent experimental measurements by ATLAS and CMS collaborations. Our analysis, which includes both collisional and radiative energy losses, sheds light on their relative importance versus the strength of jet-medium interactions and helps quantify the amount of out-of-cone radiation of predominantly prompt quark-initiated jets.

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arXiv2016

Transverse momentum broadening in semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering at next-to-leading order

Within the framework of higher-twist collinear factorization, transverse momentum broadening for the final hadrons in semi-inclusive deeply inelastic $e+A$ collisions is studied at the next-to-leading order (NLO) in perturbative QCD. Through explicit calculations of real and virtual corrections at twist-4, the transverse-momentum-weighted differential cross section due to double scattering is shown to factorize at NLO and can be expressed as a convolution of twist-4 nuclear parton correlation functions, the usual twist-2 fragmentation functions and hard parts which are finite and free of any divergences. A QCD evolution equation is also derived for the renormalized twist-4 quark-gluon correlation function which can be applied to future phenomenological studies of transverse momentum broadening and jet quenching at NLO.

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arXiv2016

Next-to-leading order transverse momentum broadening for Drell-Yan production in p+A collisions

We present the nuclear transverse momentum broadening for Drell-Yan lepton pair production in p+A collisions at next-to-leading order (NLO) in powers of strong coupling constant $α_s$. We verify that the transverse momentum weighted differential cross section in NLO perturbative QCD (pQCD) at twist-4 can be factorized into the convolution of parton distribution function of an active parton in the projectile proton, a twist-4 multiparton correlation function of the target nucleus, and perturbatively calculable hard coefficient function. We identify a QCD evolution equation for such a twist-4 nuclear gluon-quark correlation function, and verify its universality -- its process independence. This finding demonstrates the prediction power of pQCD factorization approach for studying parton multiple scattering in nuclear medium.

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arXiv2016

Jet fragmentation functions in proton-proton collisions using soft-collinear effective theory

The jet fragmentation function describes the longitudinal momentum distribution of hadrons inside a reconstructed jet. We study the jet fragmentation function in proton-proton collisions in the framework of soft-collinear effective theory (SCET). We find that, up to power corrections, the jet fragmentation function can be expressed as the ratio of the fragmenting jet function and the unmeasured jet function. Using renormalization group techniques, we are able to resum large logarithms of jet radii R in the perturbative expansion of the cross section. We use our theoretical formalism to describe the jet fragmentation functions for light hadron and heavy meson production measured at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Our calculations agree very well with the experimental data for the light hadron production. On the other hand, although our calculations for the heavy meson production inside jets are consistent with the PYTHIA simulation, they fail to describe the LHC data. We find that the jet fragmentation function for heavy meson production is very sensitive to the gluon-to-heavy-meson fragmentation function.

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arXiv2016

Photon-tagged and B-meson-tagged b-jet production at the LHC

Tagged jet measurements in high energy hadronic and nuclear reactions provide constraints on the energy and parton flavor origin of the parton shower that recoils against the tagging particle. Such additional insight can be especially beneficial in illuminating the mechanisms of heavy flavor production in proton-proton collisions at the LHC and their modification in the heavy ion environment, which are not fully understood. With this motivation, we present theoretical results for isolated-photon-tagged and B-meson-tagged b-jet production at center-of-mass energy 5.1 TeV for comparison to the upcoming lead-lead data. We find that photon-tagged b-jets exhibit smaller momentum imbalance shift in nuclear matter, and correspondingly smaller energy loss, than photon-tagged light flavor jets. Our results show that B-meson tagging is most effective in ensuring that the dominant fraction of recoiling jets originate from prompt b-quarks. Interestingly, in this channel the large suppression of the cross section is not accompanied by a significant momentum imbalance shift.

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arXiv2016

Initial-state cold nuclear matter energy loss effects on inclusive jet production in p+A collisions at RHIC and LHC

Recent measurements of the centrality and rapidity dependence of single inclusive jet production in p+Pb collisions at the LHC have revealed large and non-trivial nuclear modification of the production cross section for this process. In this paper, we explore to what extent such nuclear modification can be understood by the framework of standard cold nuclear matter effects, in particular initial-state cold nuclear matter energy loss. We demonstrate quantitatively that theoretical calculations which include medium-induced radiative corrections can describe rather reasonably the attenuation of the jet production yields in the large transverse momentum region in d+Au collisions at RHIC and p+Pb collisions at the LHC for central to semi-central collisions. We further show that the observed scaling behavior of the nuclear modification factor as a function of the total jet energy $p_T\, {\cosh} (y)$ for various rapidity intervals has a natural explanation in the picture of cold nuclear matter energy loss. On the other hand, the observed enhancement in peripheral collisions is not described in this picture and could have a different origin.

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