Can we distinguish energy loss from hadron absorption

Abstract

Knowing whether a hadron is formed inside or outside the nuclear medium is very important for correctly interpreting jet quenching in heavy-ion collisions. The cleanest experimental environment to study the space-time evolution of hadronization is semi-inclusive DIS on nuclear targets. 2 frameworks are presently competing to explain the observed attenuation of hadron production: quark energy loss, with hadron formation outside the nucleus [2, 3], and nuclear absorption with hadronization starting inside the nucleus [4–6]. I demonstrate that the observed approximate A2/3 scaling of experimental data cannot conclusively establish the correctness of either energy loss or absorption.