Speaker
Description
In this work we develop a new framework to include virtuality effects in jet quenching in heavy-ion collisions using standard perturbative techniques. Starting from a Glauber description of the colliding nuclei, we first derive a factorized expression for jet cross sections that involves the definition of jet functions in a QCD medium. Remarkably, the factorized jet cross section retains an explicit dependence on the initial virtuality of the jet, providing a framework to study the evolution of the jet virtuality inside the medium. We use the BDMPS-Z formalism to model the background fields and compute virtuality-differential jet cross sections, studying how several jet quenching observables depend on the initial virtuality of the jet. This allows us to identify the regions of virtuality phase space that contribute more strongly to medium-induced radiation and those that are instead dominated by vacuum radiation. We comment on the possibility to go beyond the BDMPS-Z formalism for a complete description of the virtuality evolution of jets in the presence of a medium.