sPHENIX discussion of physics

["Perepelitsa, Dennis" <dvp AT bnl.gov>]

Dear sPHENIX colleagues,

If you have not yet done so, you may be very interested to take a look at an 
excellent recent review of jet physics by our collaborator Anne Sickles: 
https://arxiv.org/abs/2110.14490 

This month, I wanted to highlight two recent theoretical papers which discuss 
sPHENIX-specific physics.

— 

Jet Drift and Collective Flow in Heavy-Ion Collisions, arXiv link: 
https://arxiv.org/abs/2110.03590 . The paper focuses on a possible 
(directional) modification to jet shapes from interactions of jet particles 
with a flowing medium [1]. The authors specifically mention sPHENIX as the 
place to make this measurement due to its access to low-pT photon+jets.

Probing the in-medium PT-broadening by gamma+HF angular de-correlations, 
arXiv link: https://arxiv.org/abs/2107.12000 . The paper proposes to study 
the in-medium diffusion of charm and bottom quarks through photon+HF 
correlations. The authors specifically note an advantage of RHIC kinematics 
that results in sharper initial kinematic correlations.

— 

I was pleased to see that our colleagues in the theory community are thinking 
more concretely about sPHENIX-accessible physics. (I also found it 
interesting that both of these particular proposals rely on measuring high-pT 
photons - clearly this is a compelling capability for us!)

For me, a major question is how we can further encourage and direct this. In 
particular, I think it’s important that theorists are aware of our expected 
capabilities and statistical reach - so that predictions are really connected 
to reality.

Some ideas: Should the TGs occasionally invite theory speakers to their 
meetings (as was recently nicely done with the JETSCAPE speaker in the GM)? 
Should we organize, or ask our theory colleagues to organize, “last call for 
sPHENIX predictions” compilation papers (as was nicely done for p+Pb running 
at the LHC)? One could do this for HF predictions, jet structure predictions, 
etc.

Curious for your thoughts, 

Dennis

[1] Some of you may remember similar ideas in older literature: 
https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0405301