Eur. Phys. J. C (2009) 62: 119-125
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-009-0893-6

Regular Article - Experimental Physics

A short review on jet identification

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road MS-70R0319, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA

^* e-mail: ssalur@lbl.gov

Received: 30 September 2008
Published online: 6 February 2009

Abstract

Jets can be used to probe the physical properties of the high energy density matter created in collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). Measurements of strong suppression of inclusive hadron distributions and di-hadron correlations at high p _T have already provided evidence for partonic energy loss. However, these measurements suffer from well-known geometric biases due to the competition of energy loss and fragmentation. These biases can be avoided if the jets are reconstructed independently of their fragmentation details—quenched or unquenched. In this paper, we discuss modern jet reconstruction algorithms (cone and sequential recombination) and their corresponding background subtraction techniques required by the high multiplicities of heavy ion collisions. We review recent results from the STAR experiment at RHIC on direct jet reconstruction in central Au+Au collisions at  GeV.