Probing the hardest branching of jets in heavy ion collisions

Abstract

We present the first calculation of the momentum sharing and angular separation distributions between the leading subjets inside a reconstructed jet in heavy ion collisions. These observables are directly sensitive to the hardest branching in the process of jet formation and are, therefore, ideal for studying the early stage of the in-medium parton shower evolution. The modification of the momentum sharing and angular separation distributions in lead-lead relative to proton-proton collisions is evaluated using the leading-order medium-induced splitting functions obtained in the framework of soft-collinear effective theory with Glauber gluon interactions. Qualitative and in most cases quantitative agreement between theory and preliminary CMS measurements suggests that the parton shower in heavy ion collisions can be dramatically modified early in the branching history. We propose a new measurement which will illuminate the angular distribution of the hardest branching within jets in heavy ion collisions.