Probing the mass effect of heavy quark jets in high-energy nuclear collisions*

Abstract The production of heavy-quark (HQ) jets is a new area that addresses the mass effect of jet quenching in heavy-ion physics. This paper presents a theoretical study of HQ jet yield suppression in Pb+Pb collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and focuses on the energy loss of HQ jets produced by different mechanisms. The p+p baseline is provided by the generator simulation of high-energy reactions of particles (SHERPA), and the jet-medium interactions are described by the SHELL transport model, which considers the elastic and inelastic partonic energy loss in the quark-gluon plasma (QGP). In p+p collisions, our numerical results indicate that the HQ jets from gluon splitting ( -jet) are the dominant contribution at high , displaying more dispersive structures than the HQ-initiated ( -jet). In nucleus-nucleus collisions, our calculations were consistent with the inclusive and b-jet recently measured by the ATLAS collaboration, revealing a remarkable manifestation of the mass effect of jet energy loss. As a result of the dispersive substructure, the -jet loses more energy than the -jet in the QGP. Due to the significant contribution of -jet, the of c -jet is comparable or even smaller than that of inclusive jet. To experimentally distinguish the -jet and -jet, we propose event selection strategies based on their topological features and test their performances. By isolating the -jet, -jet, and the jets initiated by heavy quarks, we predicted that the order of their are in line with the mass hierarchy of energy loss. Future measurements on the of -jet and -jet will provide a unique opportunity for testing the flavor/mass dependence of energy loss at the jet level.