The STAR Experiment Texas A&M University A. M. Hamed for the STAR collaboration 1 Hot Quarks 2008, 18-23th August, Estes Park Colorado One more ingredient for energy loss quantification

Table of Contents:  The Road Behind  Results  Analysis  Summary Table of Contents and Disclaimer Disclaimer: The road behind is personal view, so biases and mistakes are expected. D. d’Enterria and adapted from T. Schafer 2 The multiple facets of QCD

3 The Road Behind J.D.Bjorken 1982

4 The Road Behind High-p T : Nuclear modification factor R AA of light quarks, heavy quarks and gluons at mid rapidity! V~5 fm 3 and  ~10 fm/c R AA is a measure of the deviation from the incoherent superposition of nucleon-nucleon collisions assumption. Nuclear modification factor  High-p T particles are produced from the hard scattering processes.  Hard processes take place at early time of collisions (0.1 fm/c). pQCD CTEQ6M Proton Parton distribution functions. RHIC x  2P t /  s At mid rapidity at RHICThe ratio of quark structure functions RHIC SoftHard

5 The Road Behind High-p T : Nuclear modification factor R AA of light quarks, heavy quarks and gluons at mid rapidity! R AA of light quarks is p t independent as expected by the radiative energy loss. PRL. 96, (2006) Direct photons follow the binary scaling.

6 The Road Behind High-p T : Nuclear modification factor R AA of light quarks, heavy quarks and gluons at mid rapidity! Unexpected level of suppression for the heavy quarks. PRL 98 (2007) According to QCD at zero temperature  E quark,m=0   E quark,m>0  Vacuum and medium radiation is suppressed due to quark mass Dokshitzer, kharzeev. PLB 519 (2001) 199 Dead cone effect

7 The Road Behind High-p T : Nuclear modification factor R AA of light quarks, heavy quarks and gluons at mid rapidity! STAR QM08 No sign for the color factor effect on energy loss. According to QCD at zero temperature  E gluon   E quark Casimir factor (C F =4/3 “quarks”, C A =3 “gluons” ), i.e 2.25  Gluon should show stronger coupling to the medium.  E C R 

8 The Road Behind High-p T : Nuclear modification factor R AA of light quarks, heavy quarks and gluons at mid rapidity! PRL 98 (2007)192301STAR QM08 PRL. 96, (2006) “But nature cannot realize contradictions. Paradoxes focus our attention, and we think harder” F. Wilczek “Nobel Lecture 2004”

The fundamental theoretical result regarding the asymptotic high temperature phase is that it becomes quasi-free. That is, one can describe major features of this phase quantitatively by modeling it as a plasma of weakly interacting quarks and gluons. In this sense the fundamental degrees of freedom of the microscopic Lagrangian, ordinarily only indirectly and very fleetingly visible, become manifest (or at least, somewhat less fleetingly visible). What happens to empty space, if you keep adding heat? The Road Behind 9 F. Wilczek hep-ph/ v1 In particular, chiral symmetry is restored, and confinement comes completely undone. Weakly coupled or Strongly coupled medium!

The Road Behind 10 Hep-lat/ v1 F. Karsch, E. Laermann, A. Peikert, CH. Schmidt, S. Stickan Lattice QCD ~20% p T (GeV/c)‏ v2v2 Romatschke & Romatschke, arXiv: v 2 of hadrons at RHIC data are in agreement with the ideal relativistic fluid dynamics predictions  /s=0-0.8  /s ~ 1 pQCD calculations of a weakly coupled quark gluon plasma.  /s ~ 0.08 is reached in strongly coupled supersymmetric gauge theories. Weakly coupled or Strongly coupled medium!

The Road Behind 11 “We will not have done justice to the concept of weakly interacting plasma of quarks and gluons until some of the predictions are confirmed by experiment” F. Wilczek  The applicability of pQCD in describing the parton-matter interaction has been increasingly challenged by the “speculated” strongly coupled nature of the produced matter at RHIC. IMHO Weakly coupled or Strongly coupled medium!

The Road Behind The four major models use pQCD framework to estimate energy loss. Modeling the medium evolution/structure. Hierarchy of scales. 12 Differences On the jet quenching parameter q ^ Different assumptions in various models lead to similar descriptions of the light quark suppression with different model-dependent parameters. Medium q T  E L Energy loss ASW and GLV: Similar models different ^ q AMY and Higher twist: Different models same ^ q “Static medium”  s C R qL 2 ^  Scattering power of the medium ^ q q   k 2  =  2 / ^  >>1

Pion gas Ideal QGP The Road Behind 13 On the jet quenching parameter q ^ radiative energy loss If  s (T) were weak… q  1 GeV 2 /fm ^ Baier Schiff  8-19 GeV 2 /fm  3 GeV 2 /fm  4-14 GeV 2 /fm PHENIX; at 2 , neglecting theoretical uncertainties Zhang Owens Wang WongDainese Loizives Palc q extracted via comparison with RHIC data is larger… ^ q  8 GeV 2 /fm Armesto,Cauiari Hirono Salgado ^ Strong coupling calculation of q is required ! ^ Nonperturbative calculation is needed ! The Baier plot Cold nuclear matter

The Road Behind All four major models utilize factorization: Extracted from data, but evolution is perturbative Expansion in the coupling constant (LO,NLO,NNLO…)‏ The entire effect of energy loss in concentrated in the modification of FF Factorization is used without proof! 14 On the pQCD framework The characteristics time and length scale of the parton-parton interaction is short compared to the soft interactions between the bound partons in the initial state and to those of the fragmentation process of the scattered partons in the final state. Factorization validity There is no single commonly accepted calculation of the underlying physics to describe in-medium energy loss for different quark generations as well as for the gluon. Summary

15 R AA saturates! If the medium is black somewhere already, you can’t see it getting even blacker. at some point, large changes in q do not map into large changes of R AA, or: ^ The Road Behind Single particle spectra and di-hadron azimuthal correlations Single jet Dijet No Glauber calculation is required for the suppression measurements. Different geometric bias and different fragmentation bias. Di-hadron azimuthal correlations PRL 98 (2007) Model dependent calculations show that I AA is more sensitive than R AA but both have diminished sensitivity at high gluon density. I AA is a quantity that measure the medium effect on the FF on dijet analysis.

16 High-p T : di-hadron azimuthal correlations “conservation of p” Away side   In the near-side p+p, d+Au, and Au+Au are similar while in the away-side “back-to-back” Au+Au is strongly suppressed relative to p+p and d+Au. 4 < p T,trig < 6 GeV/c 2 < p T,assoc < p T,trig PRL. 91, (2003)‏ Background is subtracted The Road Behind Away-side yield neither depend on z T nor broaden in .  Clear jet-like peaks seen on near and away side in Au+Au at high trigger p T and high associated p T  Away-side yield strongly suppressed to level of R AA An access to the parton initial energy is required in order to better quantify the energy lost Surface bias free probe is needed

17 Jet-energy calibration “Direct  ” “Mid-rapidity” P P Fast Detector “Calorimeter” Leading particle “trigger” xP Associated particles Background Due to fragmentation full jet reconstruction is required to access the initial parton energy 0  OR xP P P Direct photon “trigger” Fast Detector “Calorimeter” zero near-side yield for direct photons get the initial parton energy with a powerful alternative method: “Direct  -hadron azimuthal correlations” Direct photon is not a surface bias probe. The Road Behind

Examples of higher order diagrams Examples of Bremsstrahlung diagrams ComptonAnnihilation 18 Direct photon The Road Behind Direct photon-hadron correlations Direct photon energy balances the outgoing parton. Calibrated probe of the QGP – at LO. No Surface Bias Hard process  Challengeable measurements! Photon doesn’t couple to the medium. Possible candidate for quark/gluon jet discrimination.  0 is suppressed at high p T by a factor of ~5 in central AuAu collisions. O(αα s )‏ O(α s 2 α(1/α s +g))‏ O(αα s 2 )‏

19 Analysis technique Build correlation function for neutral “triggers” with “associated” charged particles Use transverse shower profile to distinguish 2-photon from single-photon showers Comparison of  0 – triggered yields with previously measured charged-hadrons- triggered yields. Extract the yields associated with direct photon triggers

20 Correlate photon candidate “triggers” with “associated tracks”  Use  triggers to explore fragmentation functions in p+p and Au+Au 00 2 E π ‹ E parton 0 BEMC Beam axis TPC Analysis technique p T,trig > 8 GeV/c 180° E γ = E parton Associated charged particles “3 <p T,assoc < 8 GeV/c” How to distinguish between  0 /  ? BEMC: Barrel Electro-Magnetic Calorimeter TPC: Time Projection Chamber Full azimuthal coverage No track with p > 3 GeV/c points to the trigger tower One tower out of 4800 towers (0.05 x 0.05)‏ ~2.2m Charged hadrons

21 The two photons originated from  0 hit the same tower at p T >8GeV/c Analysis: Shower Shape Analysis  i : strip energy r i : distance relative to energy maxima  7 R M 00 Use the shower-shape analysis to separate the two close photons shower from one photon shower. STAR Shower Maximum Detector is embedded at ~ 5x 0 between the lead-scintillator layers “BEMC”

22 STAR Preliminary Near side is suppressed with centrality which might due to the increase of  /  0 ratio. Trigger photons-charged particles azimuthal correlations

23 Results: Effect of shower-shape cut o The away-side correlation strength is suppressed compared to pp and peripheral Au+Au. Medium effect o The  -rich sample has lower near-side yield than  0 but not zero.  -sample is not pure direct  ! How about the  0 ? Vacuum QCD Centrality

24 Comparison of  0 -triggered yields to charged-hadron triggered yields Completely different data set from different RHIC runs, different detectors were involved in the analysis too. Associated yields per trigger  0 -charged and charged-charged results are consistent. Near side: Yields are similar for p+p and central Au+Au Central Au+Au ? Surface bias  0 sample is pure. PRL (2006). This analysis Away side: Yields show big difference between p+p and central Au+Au

25 0  Extraction of direct  away-side yields R=Y  -rich+h /Y  0+h near Y  +h = (Y  -rich+h - RY  0+h )/(1-R)‏ away Assume no near-side yield for direct  then the away-side yields per trigger obey Method of extract direct  associated yield This procedure removes correlations due to contamination (asymmetric decay photons+fragmentation photons) with assumption that correlation is similar to  0 – triggered correlation at the same p T.

26 Direct  00 Associated yields per trigger Fragmentation function of direct  triggers and  0 triggers The away-side yield per trigger of direct  triggers shows smaller value compared to  0 triggers which is consistent with partons loose energy “dense medium” and then fragment. Differences between  and  0 triggers  0 -triggers are resulted from higher parton energy than  -triggers.  0 -triggers are surface biased. Color factor effect. What is the medium color charge density?

27  I cp agrees with theoretical predictions. Results: Medium effect on fragmentation function I cp (z T ) = D 0-10% (z T )‏ D 40-80% (z T )‏ STAR Preliminary 7 < p T < 9 GeV/c trig More precision is needed for the measurements to distinguish between different color charge densities. STAR Preliminary Within the current uncertainty in the scaling the I cp of direct  and  0 are similar. If there is no medium effect I cp (z T ) = 1 Strong medium effect I AA (z T ) = D AA (z T )‏ D pp (z T )‏ 8 < p T < 16 GeV/c trig p T > 3 GeV/c assoc Data points

28 First result of  -jet azimuthal correlations and fragmentation function D(z T ) in AuAu at RHIC energy is reported. All results of  0 ’s near and away-side associated particle yields shows consistency with that of charged hadron triggers. Summary and Outlook Large luminosity at RHIC enables these measurements. Expect reduced uncertainties from further analysis and future runs. Away-side yield for direct photons is significantly suppressed in heavy ion events. Suppression level agrees with theoretical expectations.

29 Thank you for your attention and thanks to all STAR Collaborators

30 Shower Shape Cuts: Reject most of the  0 ’s. highly asymmetric  0 decay. But do not reject photons from:  ’s - similar level of background as asymmetric  0 fragmentation photons  10% of all  0 with p T > 8 GeV/c  10% of inclusive  at intermediate p T in p+p ~30-40% of direct  at P T > 8 GeV/c. Limitations of the shower shape cut

31 Breakdown of factorization claimed in dijets at N 3 LO Collins, Qiu ‘07 Measurement of the differential cross section for the production of an isolated photon with associated jet in p¯p collisions at √s =1.96 TeV arXiv: v2