5. Theoretical Physics (CSN4)

Hard probes in AA collisions: general overview and recent developments

by Dr Andrea Beraudo (CERN & Centro Enrico Fermi.)

Europe/Rome
Aula Seminari (LNF)

Aula Seminari

LNF

Via Enrico Fermi, 40 00044 Frascati (Roma)
Description
Hard probes (high-pT particles, heavy flavor and quarkonia), produced in perturbative processes at very early times, allow to perform a tomography of the (possibly deconfined) matter produced in high-energy nucleus-nucleus collisions. In most of the seminar I will focus on high-pT probes. After a general overview on the main experimental observables investigated so far (usally collectively referred to as "jet-quenching") displaying the information they can provide, I will concentrate on the usual theoretical interpretation in terms of energy degradation of high-momentum partons crossing the Quark Gluon Plasma. Within such a setup I will stress the importance of a careful study of color-exchange between the probe (the high-pT projectile) and the medium: this can in fact play a role at hadronization, modifying the properties of color-singlet objects (clusters or strings) giving rise to the final hadrons. In the last part of my talk I will move to the heavy flavor sector, showing some results obtained within a transport approach developed in order to follow the dynamics of c and b quarks in heavy ion collisions.