Conical flow due to partonic jets in central Au+Au collisions

Abstract

In jet quenching, a hard QCD parton, before fragmenting into a jet of hadrons, deposits a fraction of its energy in the medium, leading to suppressed production of high-$p_T$ hadrons. The process can generate shock waves. We study the distortion of Mach shock waves due to jet quenching in central Au+Au collisions and its effect on particle production. Finite fluid velocity and inhomogeneity of the medium can distort the Mach shock front significantly such that the inside shock front disappear and the outside shock front is opened up. We also show that the STAR data on azimuthal distribution of background subtracted secondaries, associated with high $p_T$ trigger, are reasonably well explained by the excess pions produced due to partonic energy loss.