Three Predictions for Partonic Energy Loss from Light to Heavy Ion Collisions

Abstract

In July 2025 the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) collided ${}^{16}$O${}^{16}$O and ${}^{20}$Ne${}^{20}$Ne isotopes in a quest to understand the physics of ultrarelativistic light ion collisions. One of the key motivations for this run is to discover partonic energy loss in systems with a small quark-gluon plasma (QGP). In this letter we combine a BDMPS-Z based model, a weighted path based energy loss prescription, and JEWEL together with two realistic geometries of the ${}^{16}$O and ${}^{20}$Ne isotopes. The different sizes of the ions affect the energy loss in characteristically different ways depending on the model.

6 pages, 5 figures, comments welcome. v2: matches accepted version