Jet conversions in a quark-gluon plasma

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Date

2007

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

American Physical Society

Abstract

Quark and gluon jets traversing through a quark-gluon plasma not only lose their energies but also can undergo flavor conversions. The conversion rates via the elastic q((q) over bar )g -> gq((q) over bar )and the inelastic q (q) over bar gg scatterings are evaluated in the lowest order in QCD. Including both jet energy loss and conversions in the expanding quark-gluon plasma produced in relativistic heavy ion collisions, we have found a net of quark jets to gluon jets. This reduces the difference between the nuclear modification factors for quark and gluon jets in central heavy ion collisions and thus enhances the p/pi(+) and (p) over bar/pi(-) ratios at high transverse momentum. However, a much larger net quark-to-gluon jet conversion rate than the one given by the lowest order QCD is needed to account for the observed similar ratios in central Au+Au and p+p collisions at the same energy. Implications of our results are discussed.

Description

Journals published by the American Physical Society can be found at http://publish.aps.org/

Keywords

HEAVY-ION COLLISIONS, ABELIAN ENERGY-LOSS, FRAGMENTATION FUNCTIONS, HADRON SPECTRA, COLLABORATION, SCATTERING, OPACITY, NUCLEI, Physics

Citation

W. Liu, Che Ming Ko and B. W. Zhang. Phys.Rev.C 75 051901 2007. "Copyright (2007) by the American Physical Society."