Inclusive transverse momentum distribution of hadrons in jets produced in PbPb and pp collisions at the LHC: Data versus jet-quenching Monte Carlos

Abstract

The inclusive transverse momentum (p t ) distribution of hadrons inside jets produced in PbPb and pp collisions are simulated with the YAJEM and PYTHIA6 Monte Carlo (MC) event generators. The effects of jet quenching are studied via the ratios of PbPb over pp hadron p t spectra, either by accounting for the induced virtuality ∆Q 2 transferred from the strongly-interacting medium to the parton shower or by modifying the soft sector of the parton-to-hadron fragmentation functions. The MC results are compared to experimental jet data measured by the CMS experiment at a center-of-mass energy of 2.76 TeV in four jet p jet T ranges above 100 GeV, accounting or not for the experimental jet reconstruction biases. The level of data-MC (dis)agreement provides valuable information on the mechanism of parton energy loss.