Speaker
Description
High-energy nuclear collisions reveal the QCD radiation and hadronization in the most complex many-body environment accessible in the laboratory. To interpret these phenomena, it is essential to establish a precise understanding of the corresponding vacuum dynamics. Electron-positron annihilation provides a uniquely clean setting where the initial state is color neutral and free of hadronic structure, allowing final-state QCD evolution to be studied with minimal ambiguity. We present recent new measurements from the Electron-Positron Alliance aimed at building precision vacuum references for jet formation, energy flow, and hadronization. This talk includes measurements of identified-particle production, such as the K/pi ratio, energy-energy correlators, jet, and jet substructure observables. It also includes an investigation of an agentic AI-based method for the event thrust analysis. These observables probe complementary aspects of QCD final states, from inclusive energy redistribution and flavor-dependent hadronization to angular correlations, jet geometry, and the scale dependence of reconstructed jets. Electron-positron data can serve as a bridge between vacuum QCD, event-generator modeling, and measurements in increasingly complex collision systems. Comparisons from e⁺e⁻ to pp, and ultimately to heavy-ion collisions, can help isolate which features arise from universal vacuum showering and hadronization, and which reflect initial-state structure, underlying event activity, or genuine medium-induced modification.
| Is this an experimental talk? | Yes |
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| Is this on behalf of a collaboration? | No |
| Are you willing to present as a poster if it is not selected for oral presentation? | No |