Reexamining the iconic dihadron correlation measurement demonstrating jet quenching

Early measurements at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) demonstrated jet quenching through the suppression of pairs of high momentum hadrons. These dihadron correlations have a large correlated background. As understanding of the background improved, it was recognized in the field that a significant term was omitted from the background and several dihadron correlation results were quantitatively and qualitatively incorrect. The original measurements demonstrating jet quenching have not been revisited. These measurements are repeated in this paper in a kinematic range similar to the original measurement using publicly available data, applying current knowledge about the background. The new results are qualitatively consistent with the previous results, demonstrating complete suppression of the away side within uncertainties.

Figure 1

Dihadron correlations with 4 $<p_T^{\mathrm{t}}<$ 6 GeV/$c$ and 2 $<p_T^{\mathrm{a}}<$ 4 GeV/$c$ from minimum bias $d$+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200$ GeV from [19], 20–60% central Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200$ GeV from [19] reanalyzed in [37], central Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200$ GeV from [12], and 0–12% collisions from [20] reanalyzed using both the NSF method described in [37] and the ZYAM method using $v_2$ from [20] and $v_3$ from [25].

Figure 2

Dihadron correlations with 4 $<p_T^{\mathrm{t}}<$ 6 GeV/$c$ and 2 $<p_T^{\mathrm{a}}<$ 4 GeV/$c$ from 0–20% central $d$+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200$ GeV from [12], $p$+$p$ collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200$ GeV from [12], and 0–12% collisions from [20] reanalyzed using the NSF method described in [37].