The 2nd International Workshop on QCD Challenges from pp to AA was hosted in Puebla City (Mexico) from 31 Oct to 3 Nov 2017. More than fifty high energy and heavy ion theoretical and experimental physicists were in attendance discussing the progress on the understanding of the collective, and possible QGP signals in the hot dense QCD systems of the fundamental strongly interacting matter. Prof. Gunther Roland was invited to give a plenary talk discussing the development of jets study as probes of QGP. Several important measurements were presented by MITHIG members.
Jing presented the measurements of D meson nuclear modification factor and vn harmonics in PbPb collisions with CMS. These measurements deepen our understanding of the interactions between heavy quarks and the medium, and provide insights into the degree of the thermalization of the bulk medium. Ta-Wei presented results on open beauty production and modifications in PbPb collisions with CMS, that includes the measurement of J/psi mesons from B meson decays, as well as fully reconstructed B mesons in PbPb collisions. They are one of the key measurements to address the flavour-dependence of in-medium energy loss.
Ran presented the results on energy loss in photon-jet and Z-jet events in PbPb collisions with CMS. These measurements provide strong evidence for medium-induced jet energy loss by using the energy of these electroweak bosons that do not participate in the strong interaction as a reference. Zhaozhong presented the test beam experiment of sPHENIX, a proposed experiment to succeed the current PHENIX experiment, at Fermilab Test Beam Facilities. This experiment studies the performance of the 2017 prototype electromagnetic calorimeter and hadronic calorimeter.