Thesis

Jet Quenching Monte Carlo Event Generator

• Call:

  IDPASC Portugal - PHD Programme 2019

• Academic Year:

  2019 / 2020

• Domain:

  Theoretical Particle Physics

• Supervisor:

  Liliana Apolinário

• Co-Supervisor:

  Nestor Armesto

• Institution:

  Instituto Superior Técnico

• Host Institution:

  Laboratório de Instrumentação e Física Experimental de Partículas

• Abstract:

  The study of the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP), a state of QCD matter characterized by extreme densities and temperatures, is at the forefront of the physics program of both the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN and the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC) at BNL. Due to its very short lifetime, the assessment of the QGP properties is only possible by relying on the probes that are generated within the collision. Among these, jets, a spray of highly energetic and collimated particles, are among the most widely used probes. Its production and evolution in proton-proton (pp) collisions are exceptionally well understood within the Quantum Chromodynamics perturbative approach. In the presence of a medium, however, the jet formation is known to be modified - a process generically known as jet quenching. By accurately assessing such modifications, jets have the potential to provide a unique tomographic tool of the QGP formation and evolution. Jet quenching description is still an on-going theoretical and phenomenological effort. Due to difficulties in consistently describing in-medium jet evolution, from high to low momentum scales, several jet quenching models, each with its analytical approximations and assumptions, came to be. In addition, as in pp collisions, data interpretation of heavy-ion collisions heavily rely on Monte Carlo event generators. Currently, there are several jet quenching Monte Carlo implementations, but none contains all the recent theoretical features that are known to be essential to describe both LHC and RHIC measurements. In this thesis, the student will further develop an existing jet quenching Monte Carlo that is based on perturbative QCD. The selected candidate will not only accommodate the latest theoretical jet quenching results in this Monte Carlo, as he/she will further develop the existing jet-QGP interaction model. This work is expected to take place between LIP-Lisbon in Portugal (Liliana Apolinário) and the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain (Nestor Armesto and Carlos Salgado).