Mach Cone Induced by $\ensuremath{\gamma}$-Triggered Jets in High-Energy Heavy-Ion Collisions

Mach Cone Induced by $γ$ -Triggered Jets in High-Energy Heavy-Ion Collisions

Hanlin Li, Fuming Liu, Guo-liang Ma, Xin-Nian Wang, and Yan Zhu

Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 012301 – Published 7 January 2011

Abstract

Medium excitation by jet shower propagation inside a quark-gluon plasma is studied within a linear Boltzmann transport and a multiphase transport model. Contrary to the naive expectation, it is the deflection of both the jet shower and the Mach-cone-like excitation in an expanding medium that is found to give rise to a double-peak azimuthal particle distribution with respect to the initial jet direction. Such a deflection is the strongest for hadron-triggered jets which are often produced close to the surface of a dense medium due to trigger bias and travel against or tangential to the radial flow. Without such trigger bias, the effect of deflection on $γ$ -jet showers and their medium excitation is weaker. Comparative study of hadron and $γ$ -triggered particle correlations can therefore reveal the dynamics of jet-induced medium excitation in high-energy heavy-ion collisions.

Received 27 July 2010

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.012301

Authors & Affiliations

Hanlin Li¹, Fuming Liu¹, Guo-liang Ma², Xin-Nian Wang^1,3, and Yan Zhu¹

¹Institute of Particle Physics, Hua-Zhong Normal University, Wuhan 430079, China
²Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, P.O. Box 800-204, Shanghai 201800, China
³Nuclear Science Division MS 70R0319, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA