arXiv subjects

Thorsten Renk

Publications and source records attributed to Thorsten Renk.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2011

Parton-medium interaction from RHIC to LHC - a systematic approach

Despite a wealth of experimental data for high p_T processes in heavy-ion collisions, discriminating between different models of hard parton-medium interactions has been difficult. One important reason is that the pQCD parton spectrum at RHIC kinematics is so steeply falling that distinguishing even a moderate shift in parton energy from complete parton absorption is almost impossible in observable quantities. In essence, energy loss models are effectively only probed in the vicinity of zero energy loss and as a result, only the pathlength dependence of energy loss offers some discriminating power at RHIC kinematics. At LHC, this is no longer the case: Due to the much flatter shape of the parton spectra originating from 2.76 AGeV collisions, the available observables probe much deeper into the model dynamics. A simultaneous fit of the nuclear suppression both at RHIC and LHC kinematics has thus a huge potential to discriminate between various models with equally good description of RHIC data alone.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2011

Systematics of the charged-hadron P_T spectrum and the nuclear suppression factor in heavy-ion collisions from sqrt{s}=200 GeV to sqrt{s} =2.76 TeV

In this paper, our goal is to make a simultaneous analysis of the high- and low-P_T parts of the charged-hadron P_T spectrum measured by the ALICE collaboration in central Pb-Pb collisions at sqrt{s}=2.76 TeV at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), based on models which have been successfully applied and constrained in Au-Au collisions at Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). For the hydrodynamical modeling with which we obtain the low-P_T spectrum, we have computed the initial conditions based on perturbative QCD (pQCD) minijet production and saturation. The sensitivity of the obtained charged-hadron P_T spectrum on the hydrodynamic model parameters is studied. For the high-P_T part, we apply a number of parton-medium interaction models, which are tuned to describe the nuclear suppression factor R_AA measured at the RHIC in central Au-Au collisions at sqrt{s}=200 GeV. We find that the higher kinematic reach of the LHC, manifest in the hardening of the pQCD parton spectral slope, is in principle very efficient in discriminating the various models. However, due to the uncertainties in the p-p baseline, none of the tested models can be firmly ruled out with the present ALICE data. Comparison with the LHC data in this approach also shows that the matching of the hydrodynamic and pQCD+jet quenching components leaves fairly little room for other hadron production mechanisms in the cross-over region P_T=4-5 GeV.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2011

Energy loss in a fluctuating hydrodynamical background

Recently it has become apparent that event-by-event fluctuations in the initial state of hydrodynamical modelling of ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions are crucial in order to understand the full centrality dependence of the elliptic flow coefficient v_2. In particular, in central collisions the density fluctuations play a major role in generating the spatial eccentricity in the initial state. This raises the question to what degree high P_T physics, in particular leading-parton energy loss, which takes place in the background of an evolving medium, is sensitive to the presence of the event-by-event density fluctuations in the background. In this work, we report results for the effects of fluctuations on the nuclear modification factor R_AA in both central and noncentral sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV Au+Au collisions at RHIC. Two different types of energy-loss models, a radiative and an elastic, are considered. In particular, we study the dependence of the results on the assumed spatial size of the density fluctuations, and discuss the angular modulation of R_AA with respect to the event plane.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2011

Medium-modified Jets and Initial State Fluctuations as Sources of Charge Correlations Measured at RHIC

We investigate the contribution of medium-modified jets and initial state fluctuations to the asymmetry in charged particle production with respect to the reaction plane. This asymmetry has been suggested as a compelling signature of the Chiral Magnetic Effect in QCD and make a study of "conventional" scenarios for the creation of such charged particle multiplicity fluctuations a timely endeavor. The different pathlength combinations of jets through the medium in non-central heavy ion collisions result in finite correlations of like and different charged particles emitted in the different hemispheres. Our calculation is based on combining jet events from YaJEM (Yet another Jet Energy Loss Model) and a bulk medium evolution. It is found that the jet production probabilities are too small to observe this effect. The influence of initial state fluctuations on this observable is explored using an event-by-event (3+1)d hybrid approach that is based on UrQMD (Ultra-relativistic Quantum Molecular Dynamics) with an ideal hydrodynamic evolution. In this calculation momentum conservation and elliptic flow are explicitly taken into account. The asymmetries in the initial state are translated to a final state momentum asymmetry by the hydrodynamic flow profile. Dependent on the size of the initial state fluctuations the resulting charged particle asymmetries are in qualitative agreement with the preliminary STAR results. The multi-particle correlation as proposed by the PHENIX collaboration can in principle be used to disentangle the different contributions, however is in practice substantially affected by the procedure to subtract trivial resonance decay contributions.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2011

Pathlength dependence of energy loss within in-medium showers

Studying the pathlength dependence of high P_T hadron suppression in heavy-ion collisions by measuring the dependence of hard hadron production on the angle phi with the reaction plane in non-central collisions has so far been one of the most successful tools in constraining the microscopical picture of leading parton energy loss. With the imminent start of the LHC heavy-ion program and the possibility of full jet reconstruction, the focus has shifted to models which are capable of simulating full in-medium parton showers rather than tracing the leading parton only. Yet, on the level of single inclusive hadron observables, such shower models need to reproduce the findings of leading parton energy loss models, in particular they need to reproduce the correct reaction plane angle dependence of hadron suppression. The aim of this work is to illustrate at the example of the in-medium shower code YaJEM (Yet another Jet Energy-loss Model) how pathlength dependence arises in a MC shower formulation, how it relates to pathlength dependence of leading parton energy loss and how model results compare with data on the reaction plane dependence of the nuclear suppression factor R_AA(phi).

hep-ph↗

arXiv2010

Hard Probes in Heavy-Ion Physics

The aim of ultrarelativistic heavy ion physics is to study collectivity and thermodynamics of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) by creating a transient small volume of matter with extreme density and temperature. There is experimental evidence that most of the particles created in such a collision form indeed a thermalized system characterized by collective response to pressure gradients. However, a numerically small subset of high transverse momentum ($P_T$) processes takes place independent of the bulk, with the outgoing partons subsequently propagating through the bulk medium. Understanding the modification of such 'hard probes' by the bulk medium is an important part of the efforts to determine the properties of hot and dense QCD matter. In this paper, current developments are reviewed.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2010

A systematic comparison of jet quenching in different fluid-dynamical models

Comparing four different (ideal and viscous) hydrodynamic models for the evolution of the medium created in 200 AGeV Au-Au collisions, combined with two different models for the path length dependence of parton energy loss, we study the effects of jet quenching on the emission-angle dependence of the nuclear suppression factor R_AA(phi) and the away-side per trigger yield I_AA(phi). Each hydrodynamic model was tuned to provide a reasonable description of the single-particle transverse momentum spectra for all collision centralities, and the energy loss models were adjusted to yield the same pion nuclear suppression factor in central Au-Au collisions. We find that the experimentally measured in-plane vs. out-of-plane spread in R_AA(phi) is better reproduced by models that shift the weight of the parton energy loss to later times along its path. Among the models studied here, this is best achieved by energy loss models that suppress energy loss at early times, combined with hydrodynamic models that delay the dilution of the medium density due to hydrodynamic expansion by viscous heating. We were unable to identify a clear tomographic benefit of a measurement of I_AA(phi) over that of R_AA(phi).

hep-ph↗

arXiv2010

The Mach cone signal and energy deposition scenarios in linearized hydrodynamics

Particle correlation measurements associated with a hard or semi-hard trigger in heavy-ion collisions may reflect Mach cone shockwaves excited in the bulk medium by partonic energy loss. This is of great interest because, when compared with theory, such measurements can provide information on the transport properties of the medium. Specifically, the formation of Mach cone shockwaves is sensitive to the viscosity and speed of sound, as well as the detailed nature of the jet medium interaction. However, modeling the physics of shockwave excitation to obtain a meaningful comparison with the measured correlations is very challenging since the correlations arise from an interplay of perturbative as well as non-perturbative phenomena at different momentum scales. In this work we take a step in that direction by presenting a systematic study of the dependence of azimuthal particle correlations on the spatio-temporal structure of energy deposition into the medium. Our results indicate that detailed modeling of the evolution of an initially produced hard parton and the interaction of this evolving state with the medium is crucial, as both magnitude and shape of the shockwave signal show a strong dependence on the assumptions being made.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2010

YaJEM - a Monte Carlo code for in-medium shower evolution

High transverse momentum (P_T) QCD scattering processes are regarded as a valuable tool to study the medium produced in heavy-ion collisions, as due to uncertainty arguments their cross section should be calculable independent of medium properties whereas the medium then modifies only the final state partons emerging from a hard vertex. With the heavy-ion physics program at the CERN LHC imminent, the attention of high P_T physics in heavy ion collisions is shifting from the observation of hard single hadrons to fully reconstructed jets. However, the presence of a background medium at low P_T complicates jet-finding as compared to p-p collisions. Monte-Carlo (MC) codes designed to simulate the evolution of parton showers evolving into hadron jets are valuable tools to understand the complicated interplay between the medium modification of the jet and the bias introduced by a specific jet-finding scheme. However, such codes also use a set of approximations which needs to be tested against the better understood single high P_T hadron observables. In this paper, I review the ideas underlying the MC code YaJEM (Yet another Jet Energy-loss Model) and present some of the results obtained with the code.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2010

Elastic energy loss with respect to the reaction plane in a Monte-Carlo model

We present a computation of $π^0$ nuclear modification factor with respect to the reaction plane in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200$ GeV, based on a Monte-Carlo model of elastic energy loss of hard partons traversing the bulk hydrodynamical medium created in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions. We find the incoherent nature of elastic energy loss incompatible with the measured data.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2010

A Monte-Carlo model for elastic energy loss in a hydrodynamical background

We present a computation of elastic energy loss of hard partons traversing the bulk hydrodynamical medium created in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions. The model is based on perturbative Quantum Chromodynamics (pQCD) cross sections for $2\to 2$ processes in which a hard incoming parton is assumed to interact with a thermal parton from the medium. We model the interactions of this type in a Monte-Carlo framework to account properly for exact energy-momentum conservation, non-eikonal parton propagation, parton conversion reactions and the possibility to create additional hard recoiling partons from the medium. For the thermodynamical properties of the medium we use a hydrodynamical evolution model. We do not aim at a full description of high transverse momentum ($P_T$) observables at this point. Rather, we view the model as a starting point in obtaining a baseline of what to expect under the assumptions that the medium is describable by thermal quasifree partons and that their pQCD interactions with the high-energy partons are independent. Deviations from this baseline then call for more sophisticated medium description, as well as inclusion of higher-order processes and coherence effects in the pQCD scatterings.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2010

A comparison of various measures for the average transport coefficient qhat

Jet quenching, i.e. the suppression of high transverse momentum P_T hadron production in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions is among the most striking experimental signatures of bulk medium formation. Efforts with the aim of extracting quantitative information about the bulk medium from the measured suppression mainly focus on the extraction of an averaged transport coefficient as a measure of the medium jet quenching power, with the underlying assumption that is a meaningful quantity to make comparisons both among different models and between models and data. In this note, the main uncertainties associated with the extraction of from model fits to data are briefly reviewed before the notion of an average transport coefficient itself is investigated. It is shown in a case study that the choice of a meaningful average is far from unique and that different well-motivated definitions of averages lead not only to differences in the outcome of about a factor four, but also in a different change of with collision centrality. This casts some doubt on the idea that condensing the information about jet-medium interactions into a single average parameter is a meaningful procedure.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2010

Deflected Jets Can Not Explain the Double-Hump Structure in Triggered Correlations in Heavy-Ion Collisions

Jet deflection by a flowing medium is one of the ideas brought forward to explain the splitting of the correlation function of hadrons associated with a high transverse momentum trigger from a jet-like structure observed in p-p and d-Au collisions to a double-hump structure on the away side in Au-Au collisions. However, just considering the parton kinematics needed to explain the data shows that any attempt of detailed modelling deflected jets either cannot agree with the data or leads to internal contradictions and violations of basic physics principles. The idea that the deflection of jets by the medium can explain the experimentally observed structures should therefore be discarded.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2010

Theory of Heavy-Ion Collisions

In high energy nucleus-nucleus collisions, a transient state of thermalized, hot and dense matter governed by Quantum Chromodynamics is produced. Properties of this state are reflected in the bulk low transverse momentum (P_T) hadron production which represent the remnant of the collective medium as well as in modifications of so-called probes which are not part of the thermalized medium, i.e. jets generated in high P_T processes or leptons and photons which do not participate in the strong interaction. Theory effords aim at deducing the properties of QCD thermodynamics and collectivity from such observables.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2010

The Nuclear Suppression Factor for P_T increasing towards the Kinematic Limit

The suppression of high transverse momentum P_T hadron production in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion (A-A) collisions as compared to the scaled expectation from proton-proton (p-p) collisions expressed as the nuclear modification factor R_AA is experimentally well established and can be traced back to interactions between the hard parton shower and the soft bulk matter. Physical intuition suggests that the medium modification should cease to be important when the hard scale of parton production is much larger than the typical momentum scale in the medium (e.g. the temperature T) and that consequently R_AA(P_T) -> 1 for P_T >> T. However, R_AA is not a 'simple' observable, but rather results from many different mechanisms which influence what happens when P_T increases. In particular, R_AA does not necessarily approch unity even if the hadron momentum is probed at the kinematic limit of the reaction. The aim of this work is to identify and discuss such mechanisms and to present different model expectations of what one would find if one could measure suppression out to the kinematic limit for hard hadron production and give predictions for the P_T dependence at both RHIC and LHC.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2009

Medium-modified Jet Shapes and other Jet Observables from in-medium Parton Shower Evolution

The suppression of large transverse momentum hadrons in heavy-ion (A-A) collisions as compared to their scaled expectation from proton-proton collisions due to the interaction of hard partons with the hot and dense QCD medium in A-A collisions is experimentally a well established phenomenon. Focusing on leading hadrons produced in hard processes, the medium effect appears as energy loss. Beyond that, the question is how the lost energy is redistributed in the medium. With increased experimental statistics and most importantly the kinematic range of the LHC, studying the properties of full jets rather than leading hadrons is becoming feasible. On the theory side, analytic models and Monte-Carlo (MC) codes for in-medium shower evolution are being developed to describe jets in the medium. In this paper, expectations for medium-modified jet observables, the jet shapes, the thrust distribution and the n-jet fraction, are computed with the MC code YaJEM for various scenarios of the parton-medium interaction which all are consistent with high P_T hadron suppression data. The computation is done at 20 and 100 GeV jet energy, corresponding to probing typical RHIC and LHC kinematics, and the possibility to make an unbiased measurement of the observables is discussed.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2009

From R_AA via correlations to jets - the long road to tomography

The main motivation to investigate hard probes in heavy ion collisions is to do tomography, i.e. to infer medium properties from the in-medium modification of hard processes. Yet while the suppression of high P_T hadrons has been measured for some time, solid tomographic information is slow to emerge. This can be traced back to theoretical uncertainties and ambiguities in modelling both medium evolution and parton-medium interaction. Ways to overcome these difficulties are to constrain models better and to focus on more differential observables. Correlations of high P_T hadrons offer non-trivial information beyond what can be deduced from single hadron suppression. They reflect not only the hard reaction being modified by the medium, but also the back reaction of the medium to the hard probe. Models for hard back-to-back correlations are now very well constrained by a wealth of data and allow insights into the nature of the parton-medium interaction as well as first true tomographic results. Models of full in-medium jet evolution are being actively developed, but have yet to make substantial contact with data. Progress is slower in the understanding of low P_T correlations, the ridge and the cone, although a qualitative understanding of the nature of the physics behind these correlations starts to emerge.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2009

gamma-hadron correlations as a tool to trace the flow of energy lost from hard partons in heavy-ion collisions

High transverse momentum (P_T) gamma-hadron correlations are currently being regarded as the 'golden channel' for the study of the medium produced in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions by means of hard probes. This is due to several reasons, all linked to the fact that because of the smallness of the electromagnetic coupling alpha, the photon does not substantially interact with the medium and is expected to escape unmodified. Thus, a high P_T photon indicates a hard process in the collision independent of the position of the hard vertex. In contrast, there may not be a clear signal for a hard process involving strongly interacting partons if the production vertex is deep in the medium as both partons undergo substantial final state interaction. Equally important, if photon production by fragmentation can be separated experimentally, the photon provides almost full knowledge of the initial kinematics. In the present paper, these properties are used to demonstrate a distinguishing feature between two assumptions made in modelling the medium-modifications of strongly interacting high P_T processes: Loss of energy into the medium vs. medium modification of the partonic shower. Is it shown that gamma-hadron correlations provide a very clean signature to distinguish the two scenarios.

hep-ph↗