Heavy quark energy loss in the Bayesian-inference-improved CUJET model

Abstract

We compute jet quenching observables--the nuclear modification factor $R_{AA}$ and elliptic anisotropy coefficient $v_2$--for open-heavy flavor mesons with high transverse momentum in an improved CUJET model, in which the strong coupling parameter as well as the temperature-dependent fraction of chromo-magneto monopoles are extracted through Bayesian inference using high-$p_T$ light-hadron $R_{\mathrm{AA}}$ and $v_2$ measurements from RHIC and the LHC. We show in this work that such a Bayesian-inference-improved CUJET model provides a good description of available high-$p_T$ charm- and bottom-hadron observables based on the same posterior parameters. The corresponding heavy-quark spatial diffusion parameter, $2\pi T D_s$, is also computed, which is broadly consistent with current phenomenological and lattice-QCD constraints. These results support a universal description for the medium modification of high-$p_T$ light- and heavy-flavor energy loss and indicate an important role played by the chromo-magnetic degrees of freedom near the confinement transition region of quantum chromodynamics (QCD).