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Jet-Triggered Photons from Back-Scattering Kinematics for Quark Gluon Plasma Tomography

High energy photons created from back-scattering of jets in quark gluon plasma are a valuable probe of the temperature of the plasma, and of the energy loss mechanism of quarks in the plasma. An unambiguous identification of these photons through single inclusive photon measurements and photon azimuthal anisotropies has so far been elusive. We estimate the spectra of back-scattering photons in coincidence with trigger jets for typical kinematic situations at the Large Hadron Collider and the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. We find that the separation of back-scattering photons from other photon sources using trigger jets depends crucially on our ability to reliably estimate the initial trigger jet energy. We estimate that jet reconstruction techniques in heavy ion experiments need to be able to get to jet $R_{AA}\gtrsim 0.7$ in central collisions for viable back-scattering signals.