Predicting minimum-bias trigger-associated dijet correlations in p-p collisions

Abstract

A method is derived to predict the structure of dijet-related hard components of trigger-associated (TA) hadron correlations from p-p collisions based on measured fragmentation functions (FFs) from e-e or p-pbar collisions and a minimum-bias (MB) jet or scattered-parton spectrum from p-pbar collisions. The method is based on the probability chain rule and Bayes' theorem and relates a trigger-parton--associated-fragment system from reconstructed dijets to a trigger-hadron--associated-hadron system from p-p data. The method is tested in this study by comparisons of FF TA structure with preliminary p-p TA data but can also be applied to p-A, d-A and A-A collisions over a range of energies. Quantitative comparisons of measured TA correlations with FF-derived predictions may confirm a QCD MB dijet mechanism for certain spectrum and correlation structures whose origins are currently questioned and have been attributed by some to collective expansion (flows).