High-p_T suppression in small systems

Department of Physics, University of Cape Town, Private Bag X3, Rondebosch 7701, South Africa

^* e-mail: frdcol002@myuct.ac.za
^** e-mail: wa.horowitz@uct.ac.za

Published online: 26 June 2024

Abstract

We present first results for leading hadron suppression in small collision systems, from a convolved radiative and collisional pQCD energy loss model which receives a short path length correction to the radiative energy loss. We find that the short path length correction is exceptionally large for light flavor final states at high-p_T , for all system sizes. We numerically investigate the self-consistency of various assumptions underlying the radiative energy loss model, in an effort to understand the size of the short path length correction. This calculation shows that the large formation time assumption, which is utilized by most contemporary energy loss models, is invalid for a large portion of the phenomenologically relevant parameter space.