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Photon bremsstrahlung and diffusive broadening of a hard jet

Publication ,  Journal Article
Majumder, A; Fries, RJ; Müller, B
Published in: Physical Review C - Nuclear Physics
June 19, 2008

The photon bremsstrahlung rate from a quark jet produced in deep-inelastic scattering (DIS) off a large nucleus is studied in the collinear limit. The leading medium-enhanced higher twist corrections that describe the multiple scattering of the jet in the nucleus are re-summed to all orders of twist. The propagation of the jet in the absence of further radiative energy loss is shown to be governed by a transverse momentum diffusion equation. We compute the final photon spectrum in the limit of soft photons, taking into account the leading and next-to-leading terms in the photon momentum fraction y. In this limit, the photon spectrum in a physical gauge is shown to arise from two interfering sources: one where the initial hard scattering produces an off-shell quark, which immediately radiates the photon and then undergoes subsequent soft rescattering, and an alternative in which the quark is produced on-shell and propagates through the medium until it is driven off-shell by rescattering and radiates the photon. Our result has a simple formal structure as a product of the photon splitting function, the quark transverse momentum distribution coming from a diffusion equation, and a dimensionless factor that encodes the effect of the interferences encountered by the propagating quark over the length of the medium. The destructive nature of such interferences in the small-y limit is responsible for the origin of the Landau-Pomeranchuck-Migdal (LPM) effect. Along the way we also discuss possible implications for quark jets in hot nuclear matter. © 2008 The American Physical Society.

Duke Scholars

Published In

Physical Review C - Nuclear Physics

DOI

EISSN

1089-490X

ISSN

0556-2813

Publication Date

June 19, 2008

Volume

77

Issue

6

Related Subject Headings

  • Nuclear & Particles Physics
  • 0202 Atomic, Molecular, Nuclear, Particle and Plasma Physics
 

Citation

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Majumder, A., Fries, R. J., & Müller, B. (2008). Photon bremsstrahlung and diffusive broadening of a hard jet. Physical Review C - Nuclear Physics, 77(6). https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.77.065209
Majumder, A., R. J. Fries, and B. Müller. “Photon bremsstrahlung and diffusive broadening of a hard jet.” Physical Review C - Nuclear Physics 77, no. 6 (June 19, 2008). https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.77.065209.
Majumder A, Fries RJ, Müller B. Photon bremsstrahlung and diffusive broadening of a hard jet. Physical Review C - Nuclear Physics. 2008 Jun 19;77(6).
Majumder, A., et al. “Photon bremsstrahlung and diffusive broadening of a hard jet.” Physical Review C - Nuclear Physics, vol. 77, no. 6, June 2008. Scopus, doi:10.1103/PhysRevC.77.065209.
Majumder A, Fries RJ, Müller B. Photon bremsstrahlung and diffusive broadening of a hard jet. Physical Review C - Nuclear Physics. 2008 Jun 19;77(6).

Published In

Physical Review C - Nuclear Physics

DOI

EISSN

1089-490X

ISSN

0556-2813

Publication Date

June 19, 2008

Volume

77

Issue

6

Related Subject Headings

  • Nuclear & Particles Physics
  • 0202 Atomic, Molecular, Nuclear, Particle and Plasma Physics