Exploring the initial stages in heavy-ion collisions with high-p⊥ theory and data

Abstract

Traditionally, low-pT sector is used to infer the features of initial stages before QGP thermalization. On the other hand, recently acquired wealth of high-pT experimental data paves the way to utilize the high-pT particles energy loss in exploring the initial stages. We here study how four different commonly considered initial-stage scenarios which have the same temperature profile after, but differ in the 'temperature' profile before thermalization affect predictions of high-pT RAA and v2 observables. Contrary to common expectations, we obtain that high-pT v2 is insensitive to the initial stages of medium evolution, being unable to discriminate between different conditions. On the other hand, RAA is sensitive to these conditions, however, within the current errorbars, the sensitivity is not sufficient to distinguish between different initial stages. Moreover, we also reconsider the validity of widely-used procedure of fitting the energy loss parameters, individually for different initial-stage cases, to reproduce the experimentally observed RAA. We here find that previously reported sensitivity of v2 to different initial states is mainly a consequence of the RAA fitting procedure, which may lead to incorrect conclusions. On the other hand, if a global property, in particular the same average temperature, is imposed to tested temperature profiles, high sensitivity of high-pT v2 is again obtained. We however show that this sensitivity would not be a consequence of differences in initial, but rather final, stages. Consequently, the simultaneous study of high-pT RAA and v2, with consistent energy loss parametrization and stringently controlled temperature profiles, is necessary to assess sensitivity of different variables to differences in initial and final stages.