System-size dependence of charged-particle suppression in ultrarelativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions

Abstract

High-energy partons lose energy while propagating through the hot, strongly interacting medium produced in ultrarelativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions, leading to a suppression of particle production at high transverse momentum ($p_\mathrm{T}$). The dependence of this energy loss on the size of the colliding nuclear system has yet to be firmly established experimentally. This Letter presents a systematic study of charged-particle suppression across four different nucleus-nucleus collision systems using nuclear modification factors ($R_\mathrm{AA}$) measured by the CMS Collaboration at the CERN LHC. Previous CMS measurements of $R_\mathrm{AA}$ in oxygen-oxygen, xenon-xenon, and lead-lead collisions are recast with identical $p_\mathrm{T}$ intervals and are complemented by the first measurement of the charged-particle $R_\mathrm{AA}$ in neon-neon collisions at $\sqrt{s_\mathrm{NN}}$ = 5.36 TeV. The neon-neon data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 0.76 nb$^{-1}$. The $R_\mathrm{AA}$ in all collision systems examined show similar qualitative trends, but have a magnitude which is ordered with the nucleon number A. The $R_\mathrm{AA}$ feature a downward slope at low $p_\mathrm{T}$, a local minimum at around 5$-$7 GeV, and an upward slope with increasing $p_\mathrm{T}$. The $R_\mathrm{AA}$ are also compared in terms of A$^{1/3}$, which is proportional to the nuclear radius. Models including only initial-state nuclear effects fail to reproduce the observed trends, whereas energy loss models reproduce the trends in the region $p_\mathrm{T}$ $\gt$ 9.6 GeV.