Direct observation of the dead-cone effect in quantum chromodynamics


Acharya S., Adamova D., Adler A., Adolfsson J., Aglieri Rinella G., Agnello M., ...Daha Fazla

Nature, cilt.605, sa.7910, ss.440-446, 2022 (SCI-Expanded) identifier identifier

  • Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
  • Cilt numarası: 605 Sayı: 7910
  • Basım Tarihi: 2022
  • Doi Numarası: 10.1038/s41586-022-04572-w
  • Dergi Adı: Nature
  • Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Scopus, Academic Search Premier, International Bibliography of Social Sciences, Aerospace Database, Agricultural & Environmental Science Database, Animal Behavior Abstracts, Applied Science & Technology Source, Aqualine, Aquatic Science & Fisheries Abstracts (ASFA), Art Source, Artic & Antarctic Regions, BIOSIS, CAB Abstracts, Chemical Abstracts Core, Communication Abstracts, EBSCO Education Source, EMBASE, Environment Index, Food Science & Technology Abstracts, Gender Studies Database, Geobase, INSPEC, MEDLINE, Metadex, MLA - Modern Language Association Database, Pollution Abstracts, Psycinfo, Public Affairs Index, Veterinary Science Database, zbMATH, DIALNET, Civil Engineering Abstracts
  • Sayfa Sayıları: ss.440-446
  • Yıldız Teknik Üniversitesi Adresli: Hayır

Özet

In particle collider experiments, elementary particle interactions with large momentum transfer produce quarks and gluons (known as partons) whose evolution is governed by the strong force, as described by the theory of quantum chromodynamics (QCD)1. These partons subsequently emit further partons in a process that can be described as a parton shower2, which culminates in the formation of detectable hadrons. Studying the pattern of the parton shower is one of the key experimental tools for testing QCD. This pattern is expected to depend on the mass of the initiating parton, through a phenomenon known as the dead-cone effect, which predicts a suppression of the gluon spectrum emitted by a heavy quark of mass mQ and energy E, within a cone of angular size mQ/E around the emitter3. Previously, a direct observation of the dead-cone effect in QCD had not been possible, owing to the challenge of reconstructing the cascading quarks and gluons from the experimentally accessible hadrons. We report the direct observation of the QCD dead cone by using new iterative declustering techniques4,5 to reconstruct the parton shower of charm quarks. This result confirms a fundamental feature of QCD. Furthermore, the measurement of a dead-cone angle constitutes a direct experimental observation of the non-zero mass of the charm quark, which is a fundamental constant in the standard model of particle physics.