Effects of Fluctuations and Inhomogeneities on Jet quenching in High Energy Nuclear Collisions

In a quark-gluon plasma with color degrees of freedom, jets of energetic partons interact and lose energy. They can thus be used to probe its properties. Here we study how fluctuations in the energy density within the plasma affect this process. The goal is to determine the size of the fluctuations required to have an observable effect on the nuclear modification factor and elliptic flow of pions.