Potential Impact of Various Equations of State on Jet Quenching Observables in Heavy Ion Collisions

Heavy ion collisions are the closest we have come to terrestrially recreating the most extreme environments in the universe, from the deconfined quark-gluon plasma (QGP) phase shortly after the Big Bang to the dense interiors of neutron stars. These collisions allow us to probe the behavior of fundamental matter under these extreme conditions, providing insight into the nuclear equation of state (EoS) that describes the relationship between the matter's pressure, temperature, and density. These collisions have typically been studied by observing either the soft (in momentum) bulk matter created in the collision or the jets produced from hard scatterings of partons. With heavy ion collisions however, it is assumed that the jets produced will traverse the bulk medium. The aim of my project is to investigate whether this medium imprints EoS information onto the jet. I will use the JETSCAPE Monte Carlo event generator framework to simulate Pb-Pb collisions at RHIC and LHC energies, employing different hydrodynamic models to alter how the system evolves. I will then explore the sensitivity of observables, like energy-energy correlators (EECs), to differences among these varying initial conditions and parameters and determine whether such measurements can be used to extract the EoS. I will present preliminary results from this analysis.