A model of jet quenching in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions and high-pt hadron spectra at RHIC

TL;DR

The authors develop PYQUEN, a fast Monte Carlo tool that modifies PYTHIA to simulate jet quenching in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions by incorporating both collisional and radiative energy loss of partons traversing an expanding QGP. The framework models full heavy-ion events as a superposition of a soft hydrodynamic background and hard jet activity, with BDMS-based radiative energy loss, 1D Bjorken expansion, and a simple angular distribution for in-medium gluons, all calibrated against RHIC data. Validation shows that the approach reproduces key jet-quenching observables, including the suppression of high-$p_T$ hadrons ($R_{AA}$) and the disappearance of back-to-back correlations in central events. The resulting generator provides a practical, flexible platform for exploring jet-quenching phenomena at RHIC and LHC, with planned improvements for low-$p_T$ dynamics and flow-related observables.

Abstract

The method to simulate the rescattering and energy loss of hard partons in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions has been developed. The model is a fast Monte-Carlo tool introduced to modify a standard PYTHIA jet event. The full heavy ion event is obtained as a superposition of a soft hydro-type state and hard multi-jets. The model is applied to analysis of the jet quenching pattern at RHIC.