Observation of enhanced long-range elliptic anisotropies inside high-multiplicity jets in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV

A search for partonic collective effects inside jets produced in proton-proton collisions is performed via correlation measurements of charged constituents using the CMS detector at the CERN LHC. The analysis uses data collected at a center-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb$^{-1}$. Jets are reconstructed with the anti-$k_\mathrm{T}$ algorithm with a distance parameter of 0.8 and are required to have transverse momentum greater than 550 GeV and pseudorapidity $\lvert\eta\rvert$ $\lt$ 1.6. Two-particle correlations among the charged constituents within the jets are studied as functions of the particles' azimuthal angle and pseudorapidity separations ($\Delta\phi^*$ and $\Delta\eta^*$) in a jet coordinate basis, where constituents' $\eta^*$, $\phi^*$ are defined relative to the direction of the jet. The correlation functions are studied in classes of in-jet charged-particle multiplicity up to $N_\text{ch}^\mathrm{j}$ $\approx$ 100. Fourier harmonics are extracted from long-range azimuthal correlation functions to characterize azimuthal anisotropy for $\lvert\Delta\eta^*\rvert$ $\gt$ 2. For low-$N_\text{ch}^\mathrm{j}$, the long-range elliptic anisotropic harmonic, $v^*_2$, is observed to decrease with $N_\text{ch}^\mathrm{j}$. This trend is well described by Monte Carlo event generators. However, a rising trend for $v^*_2$ emerges at $N_\text{ch}^\mathrm{j}$ $\gtrsim$ 80, hinting at a possible onset of collective behavior, which is not reproduced by the models tested. This observation yields new insights into the dynamics of parton fragmentation processes in the vacuum.