PT Journal
AU Hidalgo-Duque, C
   Llanes-Estrada, FJ
TI Soft interactions in jet quenching
SO International Journal of Modern Physics A
JI Int. J. Mod. Phys. A
PY 2015
BP 1550067
EP 25pp
VL 30
IS 13
DI 10.1142/S0217751X15500670
LA English
DE Jet quenching parameter; Regge phenomenology; particle correlations and fluctuations; hard and soft scattering; relativistic heavy ion collisions
AB We study the collisional aspects of jet quenching in a high-energy nuclear collision, especially in the final state pion gas. The jet has a large energy, and acquires momentum transverse to its axis more effectively by multiple soft collisions than by few hard scatterings (as known from analogous systems such as J/psi production at Hera). Such regime of large E and small momentum transfer corresponds to Regge kinematics and is characteristically dominated by the pomeron. From this insight we estimate the jet quenching parameter in the hadron medium (largely a pion gas) at the end of the collision, which is naturally small and increases with temperature in line with the gas density and compare it to the jet quenching parameter obtained within the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) phase in widely known perturbative approximations. The physics in the quark-gluon plasma/liquid phase is less obvious, and here we revisit a couple of simple estimates that suggest indeed that the pomeron-mediated interactions are very relevant and should be included in analysis of the jet quenching parameter. Finally, since the occasional hard collisions produce features characteristic of a Levy flight in the q(perpendicular to)(2) plane perpendicular to the jet axis, we suggest one- and two-particle q perpendicular to correlations as interesting experimental probes sensitive to the nature (softness versus hardness) of the interactions of a jet inside the QGP.
ER