A gluon or quark jet traversing through a quark-gluon plasma can be converted into a quark or gluon jet through scatterings with thermal partons. Their conversion rates due to two-body elastic and inelastic scattering as well as scatterings involving gluon radiation are evaluated in the lowest order in Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). Including both energy loss and conversions of quark and gluon jets in the expanding quark-gluon plasma produced in relativistic heavy ion collisions, we find a net conversion of quark jets to gluon jets. This reduces the difference between the nuclear modification factors for quark and gluon jets in central heavy ion collisions and thus enhances the p/π+ and [Formula: see text] ratios at high transverse momentum. Using the larger QCD coupling constant from lattice QCD calculations than that given by the perturbative QCD further enhances the net quark to gluon jet conversion rate, leading to a closer similarity between these ratios at high transverse momentum in central Au + Au collisions at [Formula: see text] and in p + p collisions at same energy as observed in experiments.
Initial energy density of quark-gluon plasma in relativistic heavy-ion collisions
