Probing the charm-quark dead cone effect in heavy ion collisions
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arXiv: 2611.01285v1 · Summary page
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A charm quark keeps its quiet cone
A massive quark is expected to suppress radiation close to its direction of motion, leaving a relatively quiet angular region called the dead cone. CMS now reports the first experimental study of this effect for charm quarks in heavy-ion collisions. The researchers selected hard, nearly collinear emissions inside jets and compared jets containing prompt neutral D mesons with an inclusive jet sample.
In lead–lead collisions, the selected emissions occur at larger angles in the D-meson jets, consistent with the suppression expected from the dead cone and with a similar finding in proton–proton collisions. The result disfavors models in which radiation generated by the surrounding medium fills that cone. It helps distinguish which features of a quark’s radiation pattern survive passage through hot nuclear matter.
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