Discovery of jet quenching at RHIC and the opacity of the produced gluon plasma
Abstract
The predicted quenching of jets in A+A at RHIC energies has been discovered by STAR and PHENIX in preliminary data reported at this conference. We apply the GLV theory of QCD radiative energy loss to estimate the opacity, L/\lambda_g, of the gluon plasma produced in Au+Au collisions at 130 AGeV. We show that (in contrast to the factor of two Cronin enhancement of \pi^0 found at the SPS by WA98) the factor of 5-8 suppression of p_T \sim 2-4 GeV \pi^0 reported by PHENIX can be accounted for with an effective static plasma opacity L/\lambda_g \approx 3-4.
- Publication:
-
Nuclear Physics A
- Pub Date:
- February 2002
- DOI:
- 10.1016/S0375-9474(01)01445-2
- arXiv:
- arXiv:nucl-th/0104035
- Bibcode:
- 2002NuPhA.698..631L
- Keywords:
-
- Nuclear Theory
- E-Print:
- Talk at the conference Quark Matter'2001, 4 pages in Latex, 4 EPS figures, to appear in Nuclear Physics A