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  • Open Access

Rapidity Asymmetry of Jet-Hadron Correlation as a Robust Signal of Diffusion Wake Induced by Dijets in High-Energy Heavy-Ion Collisions

Zhong Yang1,2,* and Xin-Nian Wang1,†

  • *Contact author: zhongyang94@ccnu.edu.cn
  • †Contact author: xnwang@ccnu.edu.cn
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 072302 – Published 13 August, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/vv7y-xbrc

Abstract

Diffusion wake accompanying a Mach cone is a unique feature of the medium response to projectiles traveling at a speed faster than the velocity of sound. This is also the case for jet-medium interaction inside the quark-gluon plasma in high-energy heavy-ion collisions. It leads to a depletion of soft hadrons in the opposite direction of the propagating jet and, recently, has been observed in Z-jet events of Pb+Pb collisions at LHC. In dijet events, however, the diffusion wake of one jet usually overlaps with the medium-induced hadron enhancement of the other jet without a clear signal except a reduction of the hadron enhancement, unless there is a large rapidity gap between the two jets. We propose to use the rapidity asymmetry of jet-hadron correlations in dijets with a finite rapidity gap relative to that without, as a robust and background-free signal of the diffusion wake. The asymmetry emerges because the diffusion wake of one jet is shifted to a finite rapidity relative to the other jet. Consequently, a depletion of soft hadrons appears in the shifted rapidity region of the diffusion wake and an enhancement in the rapidity region of the other jet whose soft hadron enhancement is no longer or less reduced by the diffusion wake as in dijets without a rapidity gap. We predict the rapidity asymmetry using both theoretical and mixed-event background subtraction for different values of the rapidity gap within the CoLBT-hydro model. Future measurements of this rapidity asymmetry with high statistics data on dijets should provide more precise insights into the jet-induced diffusion wake and properties of the quark-gluon plasma.

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 072302– Published 13 August, 2025
  • Received 13 January 2025
  • Revised 30 April 2025
  • Accepted 16 July 2025
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