Event-by-Event Jet Quenching

Understand

High momentum jets and hadrons can be used as probes for the quark gluon plasma (QGP) formed in nuclear collisions at high energies.

• We investigate the influence of fluctuations in the fireball on jet quenching observables by comparing propagation of light quarks and gluons through averaged, smooth QGP fireballs with event-by-event jet quenching using realistic inhomogeneous fireballs.
• We find that the transverse momentum and impact parameter dependence of the nuclear modification factor R_AA can be fit well in an event-by-event quenching scenario within experimental errors.
• However the transport coefficient qhat extracted from fits to the measured nuclear modification factor R_AA in averaged fireballs underestimates the value from event-by-event calculations by up to 50%.