Theory seminar (11am): Hannah Bossi: Energy correlators as a probe of QCD from simple to complex systems

Tuesday 19 Nov 2024, 11:00 → 12:00 Europe/Amsterdam

CWI Room L017

There has been a recent resurgence of interest in using the projected N-point energy correlation function (ENCs) of particles within jets to study the collinear limit of vacuum QCD in hadronic collisions.  In this limit, ENCs offer a clear separation of scale useful for studying both perturbative and non-perturbative QCD.  This clean separation of scales makes energy correlators an essential tool to study a wide variety of QCD phenomena. In this talk, I will discuss two contexts in which this property of  energy correlators can be used to yield new physics insights. The first is a recent measurement of the E2C in e+e- collisions with archived LEP data taken at ALEPH at sqrt(s) = 91.2 GeV. Here the energy correlator is measured using all particles in an event, not only those inside a jet, allowing for an experimental exploration of QCD in the collinear to the back-to-back limit of QCD. The second context applies energy correlators to the complex environment of heavy-ion collisions, studying the full three point energy-energy-energy correlation function and showing that it can be useful for studying the Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP) formed in these collisions. Specifically, I will explore its usefulness to characterize the way in which the QGP medium responds to hard-scattered partons passing through it. Finally, I will also discuss future research avenues with energy correlators, further highlighting their effectiveness from simple to complex systems.