Studying the Cone-Size Dependence of Jet Suppression in Heavy-ion Collisions with PYTHIA

At sufficiently high temperatures, quantum chromodynamics (QCD) matter becomes a hot dense medium of deconfined quarks and gluons called the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP). The QGP can be experimentally reproduced through relativistic heavy-ion collisions. Jets, which are sprays of particles in a cone shape, are expected to lose energy in the QGP and can be used to probe its qualities. Specifically, the ratio of the jet yield in heavy-ion collisions to the expected unmodified yield in proton-proton collisions, the nuclear modification factor (R_AA), is a useful parameter that gives access to energy loss information. This information, in turn, gives insight into the QGP medium. Particularly interesting is the cone-size (R) dependence of the R_AA, as it can help separate out the different energy-loss mechanisms, such as out-of-cone radiation and the medium response. One open question is how the various energy loss mechanisms would contribute to the R-dependence of the R_AA separately. To answer this question, I will show the R_AA calculated from modified PYTHIA simulations at 5.02 TeV in comparison to existing experimental results in order to investigate the relative contributions of different energy loss mechanisms at different cone-sizes.