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Medium-induced flavor conversion and kaon spectra in electron-ion collisions

Multiple scattering and induced parton splitting lead to a medium modification of the QCD evolution for jet fragmentation functions and the final hadron spectra. Medium-induced parton splittings not only lead to energy loss of leading partons and suppression of leading hadron spectra, but also modify the flavor composition of a jet due to induced flavor conversion via gluon emission, quark pair production and annihilation. Through a numerical study of the medium-modified QCD evolution, leading $K^-$ strange meson spectra are found to be particularly sensitive to the induced flavor conversion in semi-inclusive deeply inelastic scatterings (SIDIS) off a large nucleus. The induced flavor conversion can lead to increased number of gluons and sea quarks in a jet and, as a consequence, enhance the leading $K^-$ spectra to counter the effect of parton energy loss in SIDIS with large momentum fractions $x_B$ where the struck quarks are mostly valence quarks of the nucleus.