Andres, CarlotaArmesto Pérez, NéstorNiemi, HarriPaatelainen, RistoSalgado López, Carlos Alberto2020-04-292020-04-292020Carlota Andres, Néstor Armesto, Harri Niemi, Risto Paatelainen, Carlos A. Salgado, Jet quenching as a probe of the initial stages in heavy-ion collisions, Physics Letters B, Volume 803, 2020, 135318, ISSN 0370-2693, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physletb.2020.1353180370-2693http://hdl.handle.net/10347/21869Jet quenching provides a very flexible variety of observables which are sensitive to different energy- and time-scales of the strongly interacting matter created in heavy-ion collisions. Exploiting this versatility would make jet quenching an excellent chronometer of the yoctosecond structure of the evolution process. Here we show, for the first time, that a combination of jet quenching observables is sensitive to the initial stages of heavy-ion collisions, when the approach to local thermal equilibrium is expected to happen. Specifically, we find that in order to reproduce at the same time the inclusive particle production suppression, , and the high- azimuthal asymmetries, , energy loss must be strongly suppressed for the first ∼0.6 fm. This exploratory analysis shows the potential of jet observables, possibly more sophisticated than the ones studied here, to constrain the dynamics of the initial stages of the evolution.eng©2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Heavy-ionsJet quenchingInitial stagesjournal article10.1016/j.physletb.2020.1353181873-2445open access