# High 𝑝_𝑇 hadron spectra in high-energy heavy-ion collisions

## 1 Introduction

Large-$`p_T`$ partons or jets are good probes of the dense matter formed in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions . The study of parton energy loss can shed light on the properties of the dense matter in the early stage of heavy-ion collisions. Large $`p_T`$ single-inclusive particle spectra in nuclear collisions are sensitive  to parton energy loss. It is also a crucial test whether there is any thermalization going on in the initial stage of heavy-ion collisions.

At low $`p_T`$ the pQCQ parton model becomes invalid and other alternative approaches like thermal fire-ball models have to be used, from which one can extract the freeze-out temperature, collective radial flow velocity and chemical potential . Apparently, these thermal fire-ball models cannot be applied to describe hadron spectra at large $`p_T`$. Therefore, it is very important to investigate how well a pQCD parton model can describe hadron spectra in $`pp`$ collisions and their modification in $`pA`$ and $`AA`$ collisions and where the transition happens between hard and soft hadron production. In particular, the impact-parameter or $`A`$ dependence of the spectra may be unique to distinguish the parton model from other thermal fire-ball or hydrodynamic models. One can then at least make a quantitative conclusion about the validity of different models at different $`p_T`$ range. The values of temperature and flow velocity extracted from a fire-ball model analysis, for example, will have to be looked at with caution and knowledge of limitations.

## 2 Hadron Spectra in $`pp`$ Collisions

In a pQCD parton model, the inclusive particle production cross section in $`pp`$ collisions is given by

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _{pp}^h}{dyd^2p_T}}`$ $`=`$ $`K{\displaystyle \underset{abcd}{}}{\displaystyle 𝑑x_a𝑑x_bd^2k_{aT}d^2k_{bT}g_p(k_{aT},Q^2)g_p(k_{bT},Q^2)}`$ (1)   
$`f_{a/p}(x_a,Q^2)f_{b/p}(x_b,Q^2){\displaystyle \frac{D_{h/c}^0(z_c,Q^2)}{\pi z_c}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma }{d\widehat{t}}}(abcd),`$   
where $`D_{h/c}^0(z_c,Q^2)`$ is the fragmentation function of parton $`c`$ into hadron $`h`$ as parameterized in  from $`e^+e^{}`$ data, $`z_c`$ is the momentum fraction of a parton jet carried by a produced hadron. We choose the momentum scale as the transverse momentum of the produced parton jet $`Q=p_T/z_c`$. We also use a factor $`K2`$ (unless otherwise specified) to account for higher order QCD corrections to the jet production cross section.

One normally assumes the initial $`k_T`$ distribution $`g_N(k_T)`$ to have a Gaussian form. In this study we relax the Gaussian form by assuming a variance which depends on $`p_T`$ leading effectively to a non-Gaussian distribution,

$$k_T^2_N(Q)=1(\mathrm{GeV}^2)+0.2\alpha _s(Q^2)Q^2.$$
(2)   
The parameters are chosen to reproduce the experimental data at around SPS energies.

Shown in Fig. 2 are our calculated spectra for charged pions as compared to the experimental data  for $`p+p`$ collisions at $`E_{\mathrm{lab}}=`$200 GeV. Without the initial $`k_T`$ smearing the calculations significantly underestimate the experimental data. This is because the QCD spectra are very steep at low energies and even a small amount of initial $`k_T`$ could make a big increase to the final spectra. As the energy increases, the QCD spectra become flatter and small amount of initial $`k_T`$ does not change the spectra much. Such parton model calculations fit very well at energies from $`\sqrt{s}=201800`$ GeV for $`pp`$ and $`p\overline{p}`$ collisions . The $`p_T`$ dependence of $`\pi ^{}/\pi ^+`$ ratio is another indication of the dominance of valence quark scattering in large $`p_T`$ hadron spectra at SPS energies.

## 3 $`pA`$ and $`AA`$ Collisions

We assume that the inclusive differential cross section for large $`p_T`$ particle production is still given by hard parton-parton scattering, except that the initial transverse momentum $`k_T`$ of the beam partons is broadened. Assuming that each scattering provide a $`k_T`$ kick which also has a Gaussian distribution, we can in effect just change the width of the initial $`k_T`$ distribution,

$$k_T^2_A(Q^2)=k_T^2_N(Q^2)+\delta ^2(Q^2)(\nu _A(b)1).$$
(3)   
The broadening is assumed to be proportional to the number of scattering $`\nu _A(b)`$ the projectile suffers inside the nucleus. We will use the following $`k_T`$ broadening per nucleon-nucleon collision,

$$\delta ^2(Q^2)=0.225\frac{\mathrm{ln}^2(Q/\mathrm{GeV})}{1+\mathrm{ln}(Q/\mathrm{GeV})}\mathrm{GeV}^2/c^2.$$
(4)   
The $`p_T`$ dependence of the broadening reflects the fact that the distribution of soft $`k_T`$ kick for each scattering does not necessarily have a Gaussian form.

The above calculation has been shown to reproduce the nuclear modification of the hadron spectra in $`pA`$ data very well . Shown in Fig. 2 are the calculated inclusive spectra for produced $`\pi _0`$ in $`A+B`$ collisions. The pQCD parton model calculations with the $`k_T`$ broadening due to initial multiple scattering (solid lines) agree with the experimental data (WA80 and WA98)  well very at $`p_T`$ above 2 GeV/$`c`$. No parton energy loss has been assumed in the calculations. The dashed lines are the spectra in $`pp`$ collisions at the same energy multiplied by the averaged number of binary $`NN`$ collisions given by the nuclear geometrical factor. The difference between the solid and dashed lines is simply caused by effects of $`k_T`$ broadening and nuclear modification of parton distributions inside nuclei.

## 4 $`A`$ Scaling of Hadron Spectra

According to the pQCD parton model, the hadron spectra at large $`p_T`$ should scale with the number of binary nucleon-nucleon collisions if no nuclear effect is included. So if one defines a ratio,

$$R_{AB}(p_T)\frac{d\sigma _{AB}^h/dyd^2p_T}{N_{\mathrm{binary}}d\sigma _{pp}^h/dyd^2p_T}$$
(5)   
between spectra in $`AB`$ and $`NN`$ collisions normalized by the averaged number of binary collisions $`N_{\mathrm{binary}}`$, the ratio will be approximately one for spectra from hard parton collisions. Because of absorptive processes, low $`p_T`$ particle production, which can be considered as coherent over the dimension of nuclear size, has much weaker $`A`$-dependence. In the wounded-nucleon model, soft particle production is proportional to the average number of wounded nucleons, the above ratio will become

$$R_{AB}0.5(1/A^{1/3}+1/B^{1/3})$$
(6)   
So the ratio as defined in Eq. (5) will be smaller than one at low $`p_T`$ and larger than one at large $`p_T`$. Such a general feature has been found to be almost universal in both $`pA`$ and $`AB`$ collisions. One interesting feature from this analysis is that the transition between soft coherent interaction to hard parton scattering happen roughly around $`p_T`$=1.5 GeV. This is also the place where hadron spectra in $`pp`$ collisions start to deviate from a pure exponential form. One can then expect that for spectra above this value of $`p_T`$ the underlying mechanism of hadron production is dominated by hard processes.

At even higher $`p_T`$, the effect of multiple scattering becomes less important, so the ratio $`R_{AB}`$ will approach to 1 again (higher twist effect should be suppressed by $`1/p_T^2`$), as shown by the $`pA`$ data . However, at SPS energy, such a feature cannot be be fully revealed because of the kinetic limit. One will then only see the initial increase of the ratio due to the transition from soft to hard processes. Such a change of spectra from $`pp`$ to $`pA`$ and $`AA`$ collisions in a limited kinetic range looks very similar to the effect of collective flow in a hydrodynamic model. However, models motivated by parton scattering have definite $`A`$-dependence of such a nuclear modification. Therefore one should take caution about the values of temperature and flow velocity extracted from such a fire-ball analysis of the spectra, especially if one has to reply on the shape of the spectra in the $`p_T`$ region around 1 GeV.

As one can also observe that the comparison of parton model calculation and the experiment data does not shown any evidence of parton energy loss . This implies that the life-time of dense partonic matter could be shorter than the mean free path of the propagating parton.It also shows that the dense hadronic matter which has existed for a period of time in the final stage of heavy-ion collisions does not cause any apparent parton energy loss or jet quenching. If one observes a dramatic suppression of high $`p_T`$ hadron spectra at the BNL RHIC energy as predicted , then it will clearly indicate an initial condition very different from what has been reached at the CERN SPS energy.