Observation and studies of jet quenching in PbPb collisions at s N N = 2.76 TeV

Jet production in PbPb collisions at a nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy of 2.76 TeV was studied with the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) detector at the LHC, using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of $6.7\phantom{\rule{0.28em}{0ex}}\ensuremath{\mu}$b${}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$. Jets are reconstructed using the energy deposited in the CMS calorimeters and studied as a function of collision centrality. With increasing collision centrality, a striking imbalance in dijet transverse momentum is observed, consistent with jet quenching. The observed effect extends from the lower cutoff used in this study (jet ${p}_{\mathrm{T}}=120$ GeV/c) up to the statistical limit of the available data sample (jet ${p}_{\mathrm{T}}\ensuremath{\approx}210$ GeV/c). Correlations of charged particle tracks with jets indicate that the momentum imbalance is accompanied by a softening of the fragmentation pattern of the second most energetic, away-side jet. The dijet momentum balance is recovered when integrating low transverse momentum particles distributed over a wide angular range relative to the direction of the away-side jet.