Probing Local Charm Hadronization Dynamics with Hadron-Anchored Energy Correlators

Abstract

We introduce the hadron-anchored energy correlator (HAEC), a jet-restricted realization of the fragmentation energy correlator and the semi-inclusive energy correlator frameworks, and apply it to heavy-flavor-tagged jets in hadron collisions. Using \textsc{Pythia}~8 simulations of ${\mathrm{D}}^0$- and ${\Lambda }_c^{+}$-tagged jets, we find a pronounced, localized suppression of energy flow around the ${\Lambda }_c^{+}$ relative to the ${\mathrm{D}}^0$, followed by a sharp transition scaling as ${\theta }_0\propto 1/p_{\mathrm{T}}^{\mathrm{jet}}$ with little tune dependence. The conventional jet-axis radial profile shows qualitatively different color-reconnection dependence, suggesting reduced sensitivity of HAEC to jet-axis effects. A beauty-sector study can distinguish a heavy-quark-mass origin from a local fragmentation-vertex origin.

Submission to SciPost