Jet Quenching Simulations with the JEWEL Model for sPHENIX Kinematics

The sPHENIX experiment at Brookhaven National Laboratory is the latest development in heavy ion collision experiments. Colliding gold nuclei together at almost the speed of light, the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider creates the same quark-gluon plasma (QGP) that occurred in the first six microseconds after the Big Bang. Because the QGP is too short lived to observe directly, the sPHENIX experiment instead detects the particles produced in the collision, which helps characterize the flow of the QGP. In my research, I used a Monte Carlo based simulation (JEWEL) to model the gold-gold collisions that sPHENIX is expected to observe. I simulated jet energies and particle distributions in these collisions under two scenarios: with modifications theorized to occur due to the jets' interactions with the QGP, and without. By comparing these simulations, it is possible to predict the quenching effects of the QGP to then compare with future sPHENIX data.