Imaging the jet-induced medium response with energy correlators

¹ Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA
² Center for Theoretical Physics - a Leinweber Institute, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
³ Department of Physics, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511, USA
⁴ IGFAE, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, E-15782, Spain
⁵ Departamento de Física, Universidad de Oviedo, 33007 Oviedo, Spain
⁶ ICTEA, Calle de la Independencia 13, 33004 Oviedo, Spain

^* Speaker, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Published online: 17 April 2026

Abstract

Quark-gluon plasma (QGP), when viewed at length scales of order the inverse of its temperature, behaves as a strongly-coupled liquid. However, when it is probed with sufficiently high momentum transfer, asymptotic freedom mandates the presence of quark- and gluon-like quasi-particles. High energy partons within jets can trigger these high-momentum exchanges, making jets valuable probes for revealing the presence of such quasi-particles. Such elastic scatterings are implemented in the Hybrid Model, where a jet parton that scatters is deflected, kicking a medium parton, which recoils. Before and after a scattering, as one and then both partons propagate through the medium, they lose energy and momentum, exciting wakes in the QGP droplet. We use two-point and three-point energy-energy correlators (EECs) to reveal the relevant angular regions at which (modified) parton showers and wakes in the QGP each dominate, offering a new way with which to visualize and constrain the corresponding dynamics. We compare our calculations to recent CMS and ALICE measurements of two-point EECs of charged-particle tracks in jets produced in PbPb collisions. We show that our calculations are closest to the experimental measurements when elastic scattering is included and when the elastically scattered recoil-partons produce their own wakes. We also propose a new variant of the measurement that is especially sensitive to jet wakes.