Jet quenching and azimuthal anisotropy of large p(T) spectra in noncentral high-energy heavy ion collisions

Aug, 2000
9 pages
Published in:
  • Phys.Rev.C 63 (2001) 054902
e-Print:
Report number:
  • LBNL-46795

Citations per year

200020062012201820240510152025
Abstract: (arXiv)
Parton energy loss inside a dense medium leads to the suppression of large pTp_T hadrons and can also cause azimuthal anisotropy of hadron spectra at large transverse momentum in non-central high-energy heavy-ion collisions. Such azimuthal anisotropy is studied qualitatively in a parton model for heavy-ion collisions at the RHIC energies. The coefficient v2(pT)v_2(p_T) of the elliptic anisotropy at large pTp_T is found to be very sensitive to parton energy loss. It decreases slowly with pTp_T contrary to its low pTp_T behavior where v2v_2 increases very rapidly with pTp_T. The turning point signals the onset of contributions of hard processes and the magnitude of parton energy loss. The centrality dependence of v2(pT)v_2(p_T) is shown to be sensitive to both size and density dependence of the parton energy loss and the later can also be studied via variation of the colliding energy. The anisotropy coefficient v2/ϵv_2/\epsilon normalized by the spatial ellipticity ϵ\epsilon is found to decrease significantly toward semi-peripheral collisions, differing from the hydrodynamic results for low pTp_T hadrons. Constrained by the existing WA98 experimental data at the SPS energy on parton energy loss, both hadron spectra suppression and azimuthal anisotropy at high pTp_T are predicted to vanish for b>b>7-8 fm in Au+AuAu+Au collisions at s=\sqrt{s}=130-200 GeV when the hadron rapidity density per unit area of the initial overlapped region is less than what is achieved in the central Pb+PbPb+Pb collisions at the SPS energy.
Note:
  • 9 pages in RevTex, 10 figures
  • p p: inclusive reaction
  • nucleus nucleus: inclusive reaction
  • scattering: heavy ion
  • quantum chromodynamics: perturbation theory
  • hadron: hadroproduction
  • model: parton
  • jet: quenching
  • transverse momentum: spectrum
  • matter: hadronic
  • impact parameter