High pT Harmonics in PbPb Collisions at 5.02 TeV

Studies of azimuthal anisotropies for very high pT particles in relativistic heavy ion collisions provide crucial information on the path length dependence of the parton energy loss mechanism in the quark-gluon plasma. Final high-precision data on the elliptic (v2) and triangular (v3) anisotropy harmonics of charged particles, obtained with the scalar product method, are presented up to pT∼100 GeV/c in PbPb collisions at sNN=5.02 TeV, using data recorded during the LHC run 2 with the CMS detector. In particular, the v3 harmonic is explored to a very high pT regime for the first time, allowing for an improved understanding of the effect of initial-state fluctuations on the parton energy loss. The v2 values reaching up pT ∼ 100 GeV/c are also determined using 4-, 6- and 8-particle cumulants, shedding new light on the origin of the observed high-pT azimuthal anisotropies. These new results are compared to theoretical calculations and provide stringent constraints on the parton energy loss mechanisms and the influence of initial-state fluctuations.