{"id":"a5dda8d0-3980-4c46-9058-296a5069d765","arxiv_id":"2506.22692","paper_version":1,"verdict":"UNVERDICTED","confidence":"MODERATE","novelty_score":3.0,"correctness_risk":"medium","formal_verification":"none","parameter_count":0,"one_line_summary":"ALICE reports energy-energy correlator measurements in pp and p-Pb collisions, including a dead-cone suppression in D0-tagged jets.","lead":"This proceedings paper summarizes ALICE's measurements of energy-energy correlators, a jet substructure tool, in proton-proton and proton-lead collisions. It reports a suppression in charm-tagged jets consistent with the dead-cone effect and a puzzling modification in low-energy proton-lead jets.","discovery_kind":"review","skeptic_critique":{"model":"deepseek-v4-flash","headline":"Perpendicular-cone UE subtraction is the load-bearing step for the p-Pb modification claim; without closure against an alternative subtraction, the 10% effect could be a low-pT background artifact.","rationale":"The reader's weakest assumption correctly identifies the perpendicular-cone UE subtraction as the critical step for the only genuinely new physics claim in the proceedings, the p-Pb modification. The concern is load-bearing because if the subtraction is biased, the reported angle-dependent 10% modification could be entirely a method artifact: the low-pT bin is exactly where the UE contamination is largest, and the pattern of suppression at small angles plus enhancement at large angles is precisely the kind of shape a mismatched background subtraction would produce. The paper's own admission that the underlying cause 'remains currently undetermined' and the mention of an in-progress multiplicity study do not resolve this, since those address physics interpretation rather than the validity of the subtraction. The other headline results are less vulnerable: the pp EEC universality is an observation of scaling behavior, the D0-tagged suppression is explicitly framed as 'consistent with' the dead-cone expectation and backed by an earlier Nature publication, and the E3C alpha_s extraction is presented as ongoing work. I therefore agree with the reader's weakest assumption, and I do not see a reason to move the UNVERDICTED verdict: the proceedings are well-written summaries, but the p-Pb claim remains unverified pending a control of the UE subtraction. The proposed closure test would settle the concern directly and, if passed, would strengthen the proceedings' central message.","tokens_in":3357,"tokens_out":6286,"duration_ms":68482,"concrete_test":"Run a closure test in which PYTHIA pp jets are embedded into real p-Pb minimum-bias events at track level and the exact p-Pb EEC analysis with the perpendicular-cone subtraction is applied. If the reconstructed p-Pb/pp ratio reproduces the 10% suppression and enhancement at 20-40 GeV in the embedded sample, where no jet modification is simulated, the effect is a subtraction artifact. As a cross-check, repeat the p-Pb analysis with an alternative background estimator, e.g. random-cone or mixed-event subtraction averaged over many azimuthal positions, and with the perpendicular cone at 60 and 120 degrees; the 10% effects must survive within about 2-3% to be considered physical.","verdict_should_be":"UNCHANGED","load_bearing_attack":"Section 2.3's p-Pb claim (approximately 10% suppression at small angles, 10% enhancement at large angles for 20-40 GeV jets) rests entirely on the perpendicular-cone subtraction: the UE-related combinatorial background in the EEC is estimated from a cone 90 degrees in phi away from the signal jet. This assumes the transverse UE is representative of the UE inside the jet cone, both in density and in angular pair structure. In p-Pb, that is not guaranteed: the UE can be anisotropic (flow harmonics, possible away-side correlations), and the EEC background is angle-dependent, not a single scalar density. The same method is applied at all jet pT, but the modification appears only in the lowest pT bin, exactly where the UE fraction is largest and subtraction systematics scale as 1/pT. The paper itself notes the underlying cause 'remains currently undetermined' and cites in-progress multiplicity studies; neither addresses whether the subtraction procedure manufactures the ratio dip and enhancement. Unless the subtraction is validated with a data-driven closure test or an independent estimator, the 10% modification cannot be taken as evidence for cold-nuclear-matter effects.","agreement_with_reader":"agree"},"referee_report":{"model":"deepseek-v4-flash","summary":"This proceedings contribution reports on behalf of the ALICE Collaboration a set of energy-energy correlator (EEC) measurements: the 2-point EEC in inclusive charged jets in pp collisions, in D0-tagged jets in pp collisions, and in inclusive jets in p-Pb collisions, together with the 3-point energy correlator (E3C) in pp collisions. The main physics claims are (1) a jet-pT-independent universality of the EEC when plotted as a function of <pT>*R_L, (2) a suppression of the D0-tagged-jet EEC consistent with the dead-cone effect, (3) a roughly 10% suppression at small angles and 10% enhancement at large angles for 20-40 GeV/c jets in p-Pb relative to pp, and (4) sensitivity of the E3C/EEC ratio to the strong coupling constant. The text is qualitative in nature; no numerical values, uncertainties, or systematic breakdowns are given, and quantitative statements rely on internal ALICE preliminary plots and references.","tokens_in":3540,"tokens_out":2805,"duration_ms":35356,"significance":"Energy-energy correlators are an active and important jet-substructure avenue, and extending them to heavy-flavor jets and to p-Pb collisions is genuinely interesting: these measurements can probe dead-cone physics and cold-nuclear-matter effects in new ways. The paper is a useful summary of ALICE activity and points to several publicly archived preliminary plots and papers. Its central value is as a status report; the physics conclusions, if substantiated by the underlying analyses, would be of interest to the heavy-ion and jet-substructure communities. However, as written, the quantitative claims (especially the 10% p-Pb modification) cannot be independently assessed because no uncertainties or method validations are provided.","major_comments":[{"comment":"The p-Pb modification claim (approximately 10% suppression at small angles and 10% enhancement at large angles for 20-40 GeV/c jets) rests entirely on the perpendicular-cone underlying-event subtraction. The paper states, 'the UE-related combinatorial background in the EEC is corrected for using a perpendicular-cone method, which uses a cone 90 deg in phi away from the signal jet to estimate the background contribution.' This procedure assumes the transverse UE is representative of the UE inside the jet cone in both density and angular pair structure. In p-Pb collisions, anisotropic flow and away-side correlations can break that assumption, and the EEC background is angle-dependent rather than a single scalar. The modification appears only in the lowest-pT bin, where the UE fraction is largest and subtraction systematics scale as 1/pT. The paper provides no closure test, no cross-check against an independent subtraction method, and no systematic uncertainty estimate for this step. Because the paper itself admits the underlying cause 'remains currently undetermined,' this subtraction is the load-bearing step for the central p-Pb result. A quantitative assessment of the subtraction bias, or a presentation of the result as a preliminary observation with a clear caveat, is needed.","section":"2.3"},{"comment":"The dead-cone claim is based on a visual comparison: 'The D0-tagged jets, in the red points, are visibly suppressed compared to the inclusive jets, in the dark blue points.' No significance, no numerical suppression factor, no quoted uncertainties, and no explicit comparison to a pQCD calculation are given. The text notes 'some indication of the importance of non-perturbative effects... given the slight tension between the scaling of the pQCD calculation and the data,' but this tension is not quantified. To support the claim that the suppression is consistent with the dead-cone effect, the analysis should state the statistical and systematic significance of the difference, and confirm that the comparison is made at the same jet pT and similar kinematic selections. Without these, the reader cannot distinguish dead-cone suppression from selection or fragmentation effects.","section":"2.2"},{"comment":"The 'jet pT-independent universality' claim is stated as a visual alignment of the EEC curves when plotted against <pT>*R_L. The manuscript gives no quantitative measure of the degree of alignment across the three pT ranges, nor does it specify the pT ranges and their mean values. Since the universality is presented as a central feature of the inclusive-jet result, a quantitative statement (e.g., residual scatter or a comparison of peak positions) is needed to make the claim falsifiable.","section":"2.1"}],"minor_comments":[{"comment":"In Figure 2(b), the ratio of p-Pb to pp EECs is described as showing 'approximately 10% suppression' and 'approximately 10% enhancement,' but no uncertainty bands or error bars are visible or described in the text; adding them, even schematically, would help the reader gauge the significance.","section":"2.3"},{"comment":"Equation (1) uses the notation 'R_L' for both the angular distance between pairs and the variable in the delta function; the definition of R_{L,ij} would be clearer if the index on the delta function were explicitly tied to the pair (i,j), and if the integral limits were stated consistently with the text.","section":"1"},{"comment":"Figure 1(b) is described for '10-15 GeV/c jets' but the text does not state whether the inclusive-jet curve is in the same pT range; please clarify the comparison kinematics.","section":"2.2"},{"comment":"The sentence 'The ratio of the E3C to EEC can be seen in Fig. 3(b)' and the following description would benefit from explicitly stating that no alpha_s extraction is presented yet; the phrase 'currently working to extract' is appropriate but should be linked to the figure's role as a projection rather than a result.","section":"3"}],"recommendation":"major_revision","confidential_remarks":"This manuscript is a proceedings-style summary, and the bar for published quantitative claims should be consistent with that. The main technical risk is the perpendicular-cone subtraction in p-Pb; if the collaboration can provide a closure test or a clear systematic uncertainty, the result would be much more credible. The self-identified limitations (unexplained modification, in-progress multiplicity studies) are commendably honest and should be retained. The paper is within scope of a nuclear-experiments journal, though it may be better suited to a proceedings-oriented venue."},"author_rebuttal":null,"desk_editor":{"model":"deepseek-v4-flash","letter":"Colleague,\n\nThis is a conference proceedings summary from ALICE, so the right question is not whether it contains new physics but whether it is an accurate, useful account of work that is mostly in the collaboration's published papers. It is. The writing is clear, the observable is well motivated, and the authors are explicit about what is still under study. The D0-tagged jet EEC, showing a suppression consistent with the dead-cone effect, is the most mature result and is properly cited. The inclusive-jet pp EEC universality in <pT>*R_L is also cleanly presented.\n\nThe new-ish material is the p-Pb EEC measurement, and this is where I have my only real concern. The paper reports an approximately 10% suppression at small angles and 10% enhancement at large angles in the 20-40 GeV jet pT bin, with no uncertainties shown. More importantly, the entire claim rests on the perpendicular-cone method for underlying-event subtraction, which assumes the UE in a cone 90 degrees away in phi is representative of the UE inside the jet. That assumption is not automatically safe in p-Pb, where flow harmonics and away-side correlations can make the UE anisotropic and angle-dependent. The effect appears only in the lowest pT bin, exactly where the UE fraction is largest. The paper itself says the underlying cause 'remains currently undetermined,' which is honest, but it does not address whether the subtraction could manufacture the observed dip-and-rise. A closure test using an independent UE estimator would settle this. I don't take the 10% as evidence for cold-nuclear-matter effects until that is shown.\n\nThat said, this is a proceedings paper, not the full analysis; the details may exist in the ALICE internal documentation. The presentation here is appropriately hedged about the interpretation.\n\nThe E3C section is brief and honest that the alpha_s extraction is in progress. Calling it 'precise' before the extraction is done is slightly promotional, but typical for proceedings.\n\nOverall: a well-written summary that will serve people who want a quick entry point into ALICE's EEC program. I would not cite it in my own work; I'd cite the underlying collaboration papers. But it deserves a serious referee if submitted as a proceedings contribution, mainly to check whether the p-Pb claim is presented with the right caveats. I'd send it back for a sentence or two on the UE-subtraction systematics.","headline":"A clean conference-proceedings summary of ALICE's EEC program; the p-Pb modification claim needs a UE-subtraction closure test before I'd trust the 10% effect.","tokens_in":4072,"tokens_out":2627,"would_cite":false,"duration_ms":52014,"reading_group":"maybe","serious_thinker":"yes","would_accept_peer_review":true},"rs_alignment":null,"lean_confirmation":null,"pith_extraction":{"msc":[],"pacs":[],"model":"deepseek-v4-flash","headline":"Energy-energy correlators show jet momentum independence, charm dead-cone suppression, and a low-pT p-Pb modification.","keywords":["energy-energy correlators","jet substructure","QCD","dead-cone effect","heavy-flavor jets","p-Pb collisions","strong coupling constant"],"falsifier":"Recompute the p-Pb EEC with an independent background estimator, such as event mixing or a template fit, and check whether the 20-40 GeV/c jets still show 10% suppression at small angles and 10% enhancement at large angles; if the shift vanishes, it was a subtraction artifact.","tokens_in":3145,"feed_emoji":"⚛️","tokens_out":10584,"duration_ms":116068,"temperature":0.7,"pith_summary":"These proceedings present energy-energy correlator measurements from the ALICE experiment as a way to read the evolution of a scattered parton into hadrons inside a jet. The central claim is that the 2-point correlator, plotted against $\\langle p_T\\rangle R_L$, is independent of jet $p_T$ in pp collisions, that the charm-tagged version is suppressed at small angles as the dead-cone effect predicts, and that low-momentum jets in p-Pb collisions show a roughly 10% shift between small and large angles whose cause is not yet pinned down. A 3-point correlator is also shown to have wide-angle slopes sensitive to the running of the strong coupling $\\alpha_s$, with an extraction in progress. If these results hold, energy correlators become a compact observable that separates perturbative, hadronization, and nuclear-matter effects in one plot.","feed_headline":"Universal jet energy flow exposes dead cone and p-Pb shift","feed_subtitle":"Charm-tagged jets radiate less at small angles, while low-momentum p-Pb jets shift by about 10 percent.","key_machinery":"The central object is the N-point energy-energy correlator, the energy-weighted distribution of angular separations among N particles inside a jet, normalized by powers of the total jet transverse momentum; for N=2 it gives the pair-energy flow as a function of $R_L=\\sqrt{\\Delta\\phi^2+\\Delta\\eta^2}$. The argument runs on three pieces: plotting the 2-point correlator against $\\langle p_T\\rangle R_L$ makes the curves from different jet momenta coincide; the $D^0$-tagged version isolates the charm contribution through $D^0$ reconstruction and jet clustering; and the perpendicular-cone background method, which estimates the underlying event with a cone $90^\\circ$ away in $\\phi$, makes the p-Pb comparison possible. The 3-point E3C enters through the E3C/EEC ratio, whose wide-angle slope is proportional to $\\alpha_s\\ln R_L$ and depends on the anomalous dimensions of twist-2 operators with spin 3 and 4.","core_discovery":"The paper's core discovery is a set of experimental observations: for $R=0.4$ anti-$k_T$ charged jets in pp collisions, the 2-point energy-energy correlator collapses onto a common curve when the angular separation $R_L$ is multiplied by the average jet $p_T$, revealing $p_T$-independent jet dynamics. In $D^0$-meson-tagged jets, the EEC is visibly suppressed relative to inclusive jets, and the paper interprets this as reduced radiation inside the dead cone of the charm quark, with the peak position consistent within $1\\sigma$ because color and mass effects pull in opposite directions. In p-Pb collisions, only jets with $p_T$ between 20 and 40 GeV/c differ from pp: the EEC is about 10% suppressed at small angles and 10% enhanced at large angles, a modification whose underlying cause the paper says remains undetermined. Finally, the ratio of the 3-point to 2-point correlator shows a wide-angle slope proportional to $\\alpha_s\\ln R_L$ that changes with jet energy, indicating sensitivity to the running coupling.","pith_inferences":["A direct test the paper leaves implicit is to match pp and p-Pb jets by charged-particle multiplicity; if the 10% shift disappears, the modification is an effect of jet composition rather than cold nuclear matter.","The observed $\\langle p_T\\rangle R_L$ collapse could be turned into an event-generator tuning rule: any generator that fails to reproduce the collapse is likely mis-modeling the parton-to-hadron transition.","Applied to heavy-ion collisions, the same correlator could separate dead-cone-like suppression from quark-gluon plasma energy loss, using the pp and p-Pb measurements as baselines.","The E3C/EEC extraction could be combined with measurements at different jet radii to map the running of the strong coupling over a wide range of scales from a single dataset."],"forward_implications":["With $\\langle p_T\\rangle R_L$ scaling, the 2-point EEC offers a jet-momentum-independent baseline for jet substructure in pp collisions.","Charm-tagged EEC suppression gives a jet-substructure signature of the dead-cone effect that can be tested against pQCD and hadronization models.","The 10% small-angle suppression and large-angle enhancement in 20-40 GeV/c p-Pb jets, if physical, is a new low-energy nuclear-matter effect distinct from high-$p_T$ jet quenching.","The E3C/EEC wide-angle slope provides a jet-based observable for extracting the strong coupling constant at scales set by the jet energy."],"supporting_citations":[{"why":"Establishes the EEC as separating perturbative and non-perturbative regimes, framing the observable.","marker":"1"},{"why":"Supplies the pp inclusive-jet EEC data whose $\\langle p_T\\rangle R_L$ collapse is the universality result.","marker":"2"},{"why":"Sets the dead-cone expectation against which the charm-tagged EEC suppression is interpreted.","marker":"3"},{"why":"Is the D0-tagged jet EEC measurement showing the suppressed pair yield.","marker":"4"},{"why":"Provides the pQCD calculation whose scaling is compared with the data, with some tension.","marker":"5"},{"why":"Supplies the area-median background subtraction method used for the p-Pb underlying-event correction.","marker":"6"},{"why":"Provides the E3C formalism and the anomalous-dimension ratio that supports the strong-coupling extraction.","marker":"11"},{"why":"Is the measurement whose phase space the ongoing strong-coupling extraction is designed to complement.","marker":"12"}],"fun_headline_variants":["EEC scaling in jets reveals charm dead cone and p-Pb shift","Jet energy correlators show dead cone and 10% p-Pb modification","Universal EEC curve hides dead cone, exposes p-Pb difference","Dead cone emerges from jet EEC, p-Pb jets shift 10%","Charm quark dead cone seen, p-Pb EEC altered 10%"],"cache_read_input_tokens":3200,"weakest_assumption_plain":"The p-Pb modification claim assumes that the particle background measured in a cone 90 degrees away from the jet is the same as the background inside the jet cone, so a biased background estimate could create the reported 10 percent shift; the paper also leaves the physical cause of the shift undetermined.","fun_headline_variants_meta":{"raw":{"variants":["EEC scaling in jets reveals charm dead cone and p-Pb shift","Jet energy correlators show dead cone and 10% p-Pb modification","Universal EEC curve hides dead cone, exposes p-Pb difference","Dead cone emerges from jet EEC, p-Pb jets shift 10%","Charm quark dead cone seen, p-Pb EEC altered 10%"]},"model":"deepseek-v4-flash","effort":"low","cost_usd":0.000686,"raw_usage":{"total_tokens":3065,"prompt_tokens":852,"completion_tokens":2213,"prompt_tokens_details":{"cached_tokens":384},"prompt_cache_hit_tokens":384,"prompt_cache_miss_tokens":468,"completion_tokens_details":{"reasoning_tokens":2113}},"tokens_in":468,"tokens_out":2213,"duration_ms":17007,"temperature":1.0,"reasoning_tokens":2113,"cache_read_input_tokens":384,"cache_creation_input_tokens":0},"cache_creation_input_tokens":0},"created_at":"2026-08-06T21:59:38.106761+00:00","model_set":{"reader":"deepseek-v4-flash"},"falsifier":"Recompute the p-Pb EEC with an independent background estimator, such as event mixing or a template fit, and check whether the 20-40 GeV/c jets still show 10% suppression at small angles and 10% enhancement at large angles; if the shift vanishes, it was a subtraction artifact.","supporting_citations":[{"cited_title":null,"cited_arxiv_id":null,"evidence_quote":"Establishes the EEC as separating perturbative and non-perturbative regimes, framing the observable."},{"cited_title":"Nature, 605:440–446, 2022","cited_arxiv_id":null,"evidence_quote":"Sets the dead-cone expectation against which the charm-tagged EEC suppression is interpreted."},{"cited_title":null,"cited_arxiv_id":null,"evidence_quote":"Supplies the area-median background subtraction method used for the p-Pb underlying-event correction."},{"cited_title":"Chen, M.-X","cited_arxiv_id":null,"evidence_quote":"Provides the E3C formalism and the anomalous-dimension ratio that supports the strong-coupling extraction."},{"cited_title":null,"cited_arxiv_id":null,"evidence_quote":"Is the measurement whose phase space the ongoing strong-coupling extraction is designed to complement."}],"review_version":1}