Speaker
Description
Although signatures of collectivity in high-multiplicity pA collisions suggest possible final-state interactions, an unambiguous search of jet quenching in small collision systems is still missing. Using quark mass as another handle, heavy-flavor observables can shed light on different mechanisms of jet modification in $p$-Pb, $d$-Au, and O-O collisions. We employ a coupled DGLAP evolution framework that takes advantage of the medium-modified QCD splitting functions recently obtained in SCET${}_G$ and incorporates HTL-motivated collisional energy loss effects and initial-state parton modification in the cold nuclear matter. With the jet-medium couplings constrained to the nuclear modification factor of charged hadrons $R_{AA}^{h^{\pm}}$ in Pb-Pb collisions, we predict $D$- and $B$-meson $R_{AA}$ in Xe-Xe, O-O, and p-Pb collisions at the LHC and $d$-Au collisions at RHIC. We find suppression that scales non-trivially with the quark mass and medium sizes. We further analyzed the impact of the initial-state cold nuclear matter effects on the search for QGP signatures in small colliding systems.
| Present via | Online |
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