A Theoretical Assessment of Jet-Hadron Correlations

Abstract

With high-statistics data coming from both RHIC and LHC, the experimentally available selection of hard tomographic probes for the medium created in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion (A-A) collisions is rapidly expanding. Jet-hadron (jet-h) correlation measurements as introduced by the STAR collaboration are a promising avenue to study the structure of highly modified jets in a differential way since the away side correlation can be measured down to very low transverse momenta (P_T) in an essentially hydrodynamical regime. At the same time the geometry bias introduced by the trigger condition ensures that the away side shower has propagated a long distance in the medium. The aim of this paper is to provide a theoretical overview of the observable, discuss similarities and differences to other correlation observables such as hadron-hadron (h-h) and gamma-hadron (gamma-h) correlations and to provide recommendations for future measurements.